


5 Times Peter Parker Saved an Avenger

by petreparkour



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, BAMF Peter Parker, Gen, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, i made them up sorry guys, random bad guys - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-16 13:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14811968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petreparkour/pseuds/petreparkour
Summary: ...and the one time they saved him.





	1. Steve Rogers AKA Captain America

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, I need to be finishing Bend or Break, and I WILL I PROMISE I SWEAR. It's almost (?) done. Well, Chapter 11 is 6,000 words and unfinished, so we'll see. But I've had this first chapter written for a while and I'm almost done with two others, so maybe having this published will motivate me?
> 
> I'm doing this instead of studying for my history final. Which is tomorrow. Don't be like me, guys.
> 
> Not mine. Marvel's. Beta'd by SeetheSea (and borkybarnes). 
> 
> Enjoy!

When the bad guys converged on one spot, Peter knew it was bad news. He just hadn’t known that ‘bad news’ dressed up in red, white, and blue.

 

Tony Stark had called him that morning (seriously, Mr. Stark, it was a _Saturday_ , who wakes up at 7 AM?) and asked him to come help him out with something. Peter had assumed it was some little science project that was supposed to improve his web-shooter fluid or something, but Mr. Stark had sent him an address in lower Manhattan with instructions to come in his suit.

 

Peter didn’t go to Manhattan very often–usually only to visit the Avengers Tower whenever he received an invitation, which wasn’t often. Heck, he rarely went to _Brooklyn_ , and there wasn’t even a river for him to cross to get there.

 

Nevertheless, he’d swung over to the Williamsburg Bridge and avoided the congestion building up at both ends by swinging underneath the structure. As soon as he’d cleared the much higher Manhattan skyline, he could tell where he needed to go by the smoke rising in the distance.

  
“Hey, Karen!” He called out as he stepped off the roof of the skyscraper he’d stopped on. He shot a web to a building across the street and soared quickly through the city. “Ask Mr. Stark to patch me into the comms? I don’t know what I need to–hey, watch it, dude!”

 

A man dressed in filthy military fatigues raised his machine gun and fired at him again. Why he was sitting on the top of a random Manhattan skyscraper, Peter had no idea, but he shot a web towards the guy and ripped the weapon out of his hands. “You know, this really isn’t a good way to deal with stress.” Peter told the guy as he shot another web, sticking him to the side of the water tower on the top of the building. “I mean, have you heard about all those new adult coloring books? Or, like, yoga? You should try yoga.”

 

“As much as I’d love to hear the rest of this conversation,” a dry voice says into Peter’s ear, “I think I requested you for backup, Spider-Man.”

 

Peter, about to shoot a web to continue towards the rising smoke, yelped and and fell right off the forty-story building in surprise. He shot a web to a building across the street and stumbled onto the roof of it. “Holy crap,” Peter breathed. “Mr. Stark, don’t _do_ that!”

 

“What, did I scare your poor little spider-butt?” Tony’s voice sounded amused, but Peter could hear the sounds of explosions and faint screaming through the audio feed.

  
“More like made me fall off a forty story building.” Peter told him as he hopped off the roof and began swinging towards his destination again. “I’m on my way.”

  
  
“What were you doing on a—never mind. I don’t want to know. There are civilians in the subway stations around here. I need you to get them out.”

  
  
“Got it, Mr. Stark. Uh, could you patch me in to the other Avengers’ comms? I don’t really want to shoot one of them by accident, or–”

  
  
Before Peter could say anything else, he was suddenly assaulted by an explosion of sound and voices of all the various Avengers, and he nearly released the web he was hanging from in surprise. He thought he’s just caught the tail-end of an argument between Hawkeye and Falcon, because Sam Wilson muttered “Spoilsport.” just as Captain America said, “Clint! Sam! Enough!”

  
  
“God, a little warning next time.” Peter muttered as he resumed going _again_.

 

“Uh, Stark? Why’s there a kid on our comm link?” Peter heard a distinctly female voice ask. The accent was American, with a hint of Russian, and, yep, that’s definitely Black Widow. Holy– Wait.

 

“Hey!” Peter protested at the same time that Tony says, “This is Spider-Man.” Peter continued with his totally justified complaint. “I’m not a kid!”

 

“All right, Spider-Man.” Captain America’s stern voice cuts through the audio. “How far out are you?”

  
  
“I’m here.” Peter announced, catching sight of Hawkeye with his signature bow, firing down into the mob that had become East Houston. He spotted another guy in faded fatigues sneaking up behind the archer and swung right past, extending his legs and sending the guy flying off the building. “Hi, Hawkeye!”

 

Quick as lightning–well, maybe not _that_ quick–Clint Barton whirled and sent an arrow flying right at Peter’s face. Faster than the archer, Peter snagged the arrow right out of the air and examined it. “Well, that was rude.”

 

Hawkeye’s eyes widened and he cursed. “Oh, _shit!_ Sorry, kid.”

  
  
Peter snapped the arrow without even meaning to, and he winced and dropped it. “Not a kid.” He glanced behind himself, spotting another water tower (why do Manhattan apartments have so many?) and quickly launched himself on top of it. “Hey, Mr. Stark, where do you need me?”

 

“I told you. Subway.” Peter caught a quick glimpse of the Iron Man suit plowing into a horde of fake military men a few blocks away.

  
  
“Ah, Stark, you’re late to the game!” Sam Wilson called out as he shot by overhead. “Cleared that out about thirty seconds ago! Catch up, old man!”

 

“Hey, I think that Steve’s the real old man here, Wilson.” Mr. Stark told him.

 

“Are we really discussing this?” Scarlet Witch and Black Widow asked at the same time.

 

“Hey, Karen.” Peter said to his AI as he leaped past Hawkeye down to the streets below. He heard the Avengers’ chatter switch to background noise as his AI kicked in. “Any reason that you can figure out as to why they’re out here? Any, like, alien tech or something?”

  
  
Karen was silent for a moment before speaking. “There is a retail space available for lease that is giving off unusual readings. Alien signatures, similar to the Chitauri weapons that Adrian Toomes used to attack you.”

 

Peter cleared his throat. “Right. Don’t want that happening again. Hey, put me back on the Avengers’ comm, wouldya?” As soon as he heard the audio switch from the background to the foreground, he spoke up again. “Hey, Mr. Stark, see that empty rental place on the corner?”

  
  
“The weirdly untouched one? Yeah, why?”

  
  
“There are alien weapons in there. That’s why they’re here. And—” From his newfound spot on a rooftop, Peter caught sight of a flood of bad guys changing direction and headed towards a mostly-abandoned apartment building. “Hey, what’s in—”

 

Then he glimpsed a flash of red, white, and blue half-buried by rubble in front of the building. “Oh, _crap_!”

  
  
Peter flung himself off the building, making a beeline for the fallen Captain America. “Hey, guys! Cap’s down!”

  
  
Above all the muttered expletives, Black Widow’s voice came through. “Is anyone—” She cut off for a moment, seemingly busy. A man’s scream briefly rang through the audio feed. “—Unoccupied and near him?”

  
  
No one sounded an affirmative until Peter did. “I’m on my way now. T-minus… uh, yeah, I’m here.” He waved brightly at the clustered criminals who were brandishing their automatic weapons at the trapped and unconscious Captain. “Hey, guys!”

 

Mr. Stark’s voice is tense as he addresses Peter. “Kid, we’re cut off for now. We can’t get to you easily. You need to be careful.”

 

“Mr. Stark!” Peter said indignantly as he swung around the grouped-together men (that’s stupid, he’s _Spider-Man!_ ). “I’m always careful!”

  
  
“Uh-huh.” Mr. Stark said dryly. “That’s why I built so many safety features into that suit.”

 

“Hey, guys, did you know that Captain America doesn’t approve of bullying?” Peter asked them as he webbed two of the men together and yanked another’s weapon out of his hands. “It turns out that bullies actually are lacking something in their lives that their victim has!” He kicked out and knocked one guy’s legs out from under him before swinging away. The machine gun fire was background noise; Peter was going too fast for them to try and hit him. “So, what does Captain America have that you don’t?”

  
  
Peter could _feel_ the disapproval and slight amusement radiating through the comms. Peter didn’t care–he only cared about keeping the enemies distracted from realizing that they had perfectly good bait practically wrapped up with a bow on top in the form of an unconscious super soldier half-buried in rubble. “Oh, wait.” He pretended to rub his nonexistent beard in thought before lashing out again. “What does Captain America _not_ have that you don’t? Wait, does that even make sense?”

  
  
“No,” A dry voice—Clint, Peter thought—said. “But I think they get the point.”

  
  
“Yeah, I think they definitely got it.” Peter webbed up one more before surveying the fallen and groaning men. When it was pretty much guaranteed that all of them were down for the count, he hopped down off the side of the wall and sprang to Captain America’s side. “They got it right to the... Everywhere, really. Wow.”

 

Cap was lying facedown, his legs covered by a large chunk of concrete. His back was strewn with smaller rocks and bits of metal, and Peter could see dark bloodstains seeping into the dust-strewn ground. “I’ve got eyes on Cap.” He announced to the general comm. “Well, I’m like, right next to him, so…”

 

As Peter spoke, Steve Rogers groaned and tried to move, but the rubble on his legs prevented him from going anywhere. “Hey, chill, Cap.” Peter told him, reaching out for the chunk of rock. “Hold still for a second.”

 

Peter got his hands under the rock and pulled upwards with almost all his might. It lifted up easily—a lot easier than the ceiling of a warehouse; that still gave him nightmares—and he tossed it away. He could hear it shatter a few dozen meters behind him. He knelt next to the fallen Captain, trying to ignore the worried demands of his teammates. “Karen, mute audio unless it's an emergency. They’re so distracting _.”_

 

Then, his spider-sense, which had been only a low hum at the back of his neck, suddenly _screamed_ , and Peter flung himself away without thinking. Machine gun fire opened a split second after he moved, spraying the apartment building wall with bullets. Peter whirled from his half-crouch a good distance away and watched the guy from the first building charge in and roughly yank the dazed Captain America onto his feet.

 

“Put your hands up,” The man ordered roughly. “Or Spangles gets it.”

 

Peter obeyed, putting his hands in the air and readying to shoot with his web-shooters. “Seriously? You couldn’t get more original than _Spangles?_ Tony Stark calls him that, like, all the time.”

 

The man brandished the gun pointed at the ex-soldier’s head. He seemed like the only thing keeping Captain America on his feet—the super-soldier seemed dazed and unsteady. “On your knees!” He snapped.

 

“I think I want to get to know you better first.” Peter quipped, pretending to lower his hands to clamber onto his knees. He jerked his wrists up and shot a web at the man, yanking the gun out of his hands and shoving him harshly away from Rogers. “I mean, baby steps, right? And didn’t I tell you that yoga is a better stress-reliever?”

 

The man snarled and whipped out a handgun from _God-knows-where_ and fired at the stumbling Captain America without hesitation. “Cap!” Peter yelped, flinging himself forwards and shoving him out of the way. He whipped around as fast as possible and crossed the distance between them in two bounds, kicking the guy so hard he flew down Houston about three blocks before slamming into a building.

 

Peter heard the whine of repulsors and Iron Man landed next to him, its metal face harshly impassive. Peter frantically raced back to Captain America and checked the dazed but conscious Avenger for any new bullet wounds on his spangled suit.

 

There weren’t any, and Peter breathed a sigh of relief. “Kid, you okay?” Tony asked as his helmet retracted into his suit. “Shit. Is _he_ okay?”

 

“Uh—” Peter cut off as Mr. Stark strode over and knelt next to Captain America. “FRIDAY, get this thing off me.”

 

Peter watched as the Iron Man suit contracted and folded itself off of Tony Stark, reassembling itself and looking to its master for direction. “Sentry mode.” Tony ordered it over his shoulder.

 

Cap blinked dazedly up at the other Avenger. “Tony?”

 

“Ah, shit.” Tony said good-humoredly. “He remembers us.”

 

Steve’s brow furrowed and he brought a hand up to his forehead, as though he had a headache—which he probably did. Peter felt uncomfortable in the vicinity of these two extremely powerful figures—both literally and politically. He made to get up and finish the fight, but Tony grasped his wrist. “Mr. Stark?” Peter asked uncertainly.

 

“Go find a medic, would you, kid? You’re not hurt, right?” The genius seemed preoccupied with searching the Captain for injury to actually focus on Peter.

 

“Yeah, Mr. Stark. I mean–no, I’m not hurt. I’ll go, uh, find a medic.” Peter said awkwardly before rising to his feet.

 

The fight was over—the rest of the Avengers had seemingly taken care of all the bad guys and secured the Chitauri weapons. There were a few SHIELD medics in their inconspicuous black vans as well as normal city ambulances. Peter made a beeline for the nearest black vehicle and dropped down in front of the medic outside of it. He startled badly as he saw a red and blue body drop down in front of him.

 

“Captain America is hurt,” Peter told the medic, jabbing a finger in the direction of the two Avengers. “Go help him!”

 

The medic eyed him weirdly, probably because he was being ordered around by a spandex-clad vigilante, but he raced off in that direction anyway.

 

Later, after the city was largely cleaned up and Captain America was stable, Mr. Stark approached Peter, who was sitting on top of a medical van, swinging his feet idly. He’d stuck around after the battle, partly out of concern, partly out of him not having anything better to do. “Kid—”

 

“Is Captain America okay?” Peter interrupted without really thinking about it.

 

Mr. Stark quirked an eyebrow at Peter, but answered. “Well, he’s got the mother of all concussions and a few cuts and scrapes, but he’ll be fine.”

 

“Good,” Peter breathed. “Good. That’s–that's good, right?”

 

“Uh, yeah.” Mr. Stark gave him a strange look. “Look, kid—”

 

“Thanks, Mr. Stark!” Peter said, doing a backflip off the van and reaching up to snag a building with his web-shooters. “Gotta go!”

 

“Kid—!”

 

Peter was already gone.

 

“Teenagers,” Tony muttered under his breath. He took another look around at the dazed and groaning men webbed to various surfaces. “Typical.”


	2. Clint Barton AKA Hawkeye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter. Whoops :|
> 
> Not mine. Marvel's.

When the Spider-Kid swung from out of nowhere, Clint was just annoyed. Sure, the amateur had ended up saving Cap the other week, but honestly, that was just luck. The kid was reckless, immature, and completely _not_ self-aware. When Cap had been bleeding out on the ground, Spider-Kid had been chatting with the people who had done it. What kind of hero did that?

 

The Avengers were an elite group—sure, sometimes they joked around, had a little fun, but Clint most certainly did _not_ tell his opponents that they needed to make better fashion choices. “I mean, c’mon, guys, who wears camo-on-Kevlar? I think you’d look much better in hot pink.”

 

Come on, seriously?

 

They were fighting some guys who had broken into OsCorp and stolen a chemical compound that could be used as a bioweapon. The kid showed up right after the helicopters did with a, “Hey, Mr. Stark!”

  
  
Clint groaned quietly. It wasn’t that he didn’t _like_ the kid—quite the opposite, actually. Spider-Man, on the rare occasions where he hung out in the tower, was a lot of fun to hang out with. He even occasionally beat Clint at Mario Kart, which was an accomplishment in itself. Peter was a good kid.

 

The problem that he had with the kid was _Spider-Man_. Peter was fifteen years old—he was much too young to become a vigilante and start fighting crime in New York City. If the kid was twenty, twenty-five, then it would be different—he’d probably have a job, maybe a girl. He would have true control over his own life. But at fifteen, in tenth grade, living with his aunt, Peter had no idea exactly the choices he wanted to make with his life. And then he carried his immaturity into the field, with silly little quips and a carefree attitude.

  
The kid wouldn’t be so carefree when someone got hurt. When someone got killed. Best to hang up the mask until he could get his priorities straight.

 

Spider-Man set himself to the task of evacuating the citizens from the near vicinity. He managed to stop a building from collapsing in on itself from a well-placed missile strike long enough to get everyone out. But he quickly ran out of civilians to clear out just as Steve called for him to start engaging the helicopters.

 

Men were periodically dropping from the choppers, armed with assault rifles and the aforementioned cursed Kevlar-and-camo combo. They didn’t do that much—just ran around and shot at the Avengers who were in various spots around the few blocks. Steve was in the streets with Wanda and they were both targeting the men, leaving the helicopters to their aerial combatants. The kid and Sam were all over the place, and Nat was on rooftops, shooting down soldiers who were behind her teammates’ backs. And Stark—

  
“Do these guys just have endless bodies to toss?” Tony yelled indignantly as he targeted one of the choppers. His miniature missiles hit the rotors and the Spider-Kid shot webs at the sides. With a muted _boom_ , the propellers were breaking in a blast of orange. When the smoke cleared, the helicopter dangled, the rotors completely snapped off, supported by the webs going from the walls of the buildings to the chopper.

 

“Another chopper headed for Seventh,” Natasha called. “Stark?”

  
  
“Can’t,” He grunted, and Clint watched him engage a group of men on the ground. “I’m practically out of power. I’m having FRIDAY send me a new suit.” 

 

“I’ve got it,” Wanda said before making a gesture as though she was compressing something into a ball. The chopper crumpled like a tin can and she tossed it to the street.

 

“Anyone have eyes on the canister?” Steve asked curtly.

 

“Negative,” Sam announced as he spun out of the way of another chopper’s rotors. “It’s too much chaos.”

  
  
“It’s with the guy in the heavy black armor down on fifth,” Clint reported and shot an explosive arrow at another helicopter over the East River. “The guy with the rocket launcher.”

  
  
“Oh, _that_ guy,” Peter said as he swung by Clint’s perch on a high rooftop and webbed a guy to a restaurant window. “I’ve met that guy before. He tried to blow me up.”

  
  
“Did he now,” Clint deadpanned as he shot an explosive arrow at a helicopter’s rotors. “And why wasn’t he strung up in webs and put in a jail cell after you met him?”

  
  
If Peter detected the undertones in Clint’s voice, he didn’t show it as he pulled a guy out of a helicopter. “He blew up a bridge in Queens with a bunch of cars and a school bus on it. I had to hold it together for them to get clear. He knew I would— _hey,_  dude, not cool!” He complained as the guy shot an explosive at him. Instead of letting it collide with the department store behind him, Peter shot a web at it and pulled it towards him.

 

“Kid,” Tony said and landed so hard the cement cracked. “What are you—”

  
  
Peter swung towards the missile as it spun and then _hit_ it, extending his legs and sending the projectile spinning straight up. The fact that the kid hadn’t triggered it was a miracle, but as soon as it cleared the buildings the kid was yelling for Clint to _shoot it down, shoot it, Hawkeye, now!_

 

Clint did.

 

The explosion sent a shockwave that knocked Clint off-balance for a split second, but that was all it took. One of the snipers in the forgotten helicopters took aim at Clint, and the archer had nowhere else to go but _down._

 

He jumped.

 

Stark was already yelling at Wanda to _catch him_ , but something small and fast slammed into Clint and pulled him sideways.

 

Clint hadn’t realized his eyes were closed. Hadn’t realized he’d squeezed them shut so he didn’t see the ground rushing towards his face.

 

“Hawkeye, hold on!” A high voice snapped.

 

Basic instincts kicked in and Clint opened his eyes, forcing himself to not think about Laura, about the kids—

 

Spider-Man was holding tight to him, and they were too close to the ground—  


Oh god, oh god, _oh god oh god oh god—_

  
  
Clint knew he should be shooting a grappling arrow, _something_ , but the bow has fallen out of his numb fingers—

  
  
Peter shot a web at the building adjacent to them, and they were swinging. Peter grunted as Clint dug his fingers into the kid’s shoulder, but Clint didn’t want to _fall._  But they were still falling.

 

But then they were swinging up and Clint’s legs clipped the hard edge of _something_ as he rolled on rough concrete, wholly _alive._  The ground was solid beneath Clint, and he swore that he could’ve kissed it. Could’ve kissed Peter, too, if the kid hadn’t been only a few years older than his children.

 

Speaking of Peters…

 

Clint braced his hands against the ground and pushed himself into a seated position. Sam and Wanda had disabled a helicopter each, and Stark (so much for being low on power) shot straight through the one that had targeted Clint with a renewed fury. But Clint was alone on the roof. Where was the kid?

 

  
Speak of the devil. “Hey, Mr. Hawkeye!” Said devil chirped cheerfully, popping his red, masked face up from the lip of the roof. “Are you okay?” 

 

  
Clint fumbled with words for a minute before sputtering out something along the lines of, “How are you sticking to that wall?” 

 

  
It probably came out something like “How—wall—what?” But Clint would never admit it. He was much too dignified and noble to do such a thing.

 

Peter climbed perkily up onto the roof and shaded his eyes, most likely unnecessarily, because Stark probably had built in sunglasses in that suit if it had a _parachute._  A parachute. For a kid that was practically always having a nice little conversation with gravity every time he shot a web. “Whoa, that was over quick. You think I still have time to catch my Chem lecture?”

 

With a wink that Clint could disturbingly see, (why had Stark programmed the eyes to _blink_ with Peter, Jesus), Peter backflipped off the edge and swung away, whooping at the top of his lungs.

 

It occurred to Clint after the team had cleaned up fully that he’d never thanked the kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! The response for this fic has been outstanding!! Thank you so much, guys, for supporting this! All the comments and kudos made my week, especially with finals. Ugh. 
> 
> (Coming up: Natasha Romanov, AKA Black Widow)
> 
> Kudos and comments make my day :)


	3. Natasha Romanov AKA Black Widow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not mine. Marvel's. Beta'd by SeetheSea.
> 
> WARNING: Some disturbing themes in here. Not huge, but still. Mentions of abuse.

Being bound and gagged in a delivery truck was _not_ what Natasha Romanov wanted to be doing with her Saturday morning.

 

She’d been undercover. In Queens. Granted, that didn't really sound like a SHIELD assignment or an Avengers case, but this was personal. She’d gotten a tip that the Red Room, the place where she had been trained, had set up a new base of operations. In New York City.

 

And like _hell_ she’d let that happen.

 

She and Clint had taken down the Red Room, destroyed it so utterly that it could never come back (or so they thought)—killed all the coaches, the teachers, and only spared the students. The little, traumatized girls who clutched tight to dolls fashioned out of _fabric scraps and hair_ and had knives up their sleeves. They held tight to Natasha, whispering desperate words in Russian that Natasha had attempted to drown out, because she knew she had been in that position once, long ago. But no one had come to save her.

 

She refused to let that happen again. Not in New York, her city. Not anywhere. Not after she’d built a life for herself in direct contrast to what she’d been taught.

 

The building was cold and deserted. No light lit up the windows of the innocuous two-story townhouse, but Natasha knew better. The Red Room she had been trained at was government-sanctioned (although one-hundred-ten-percent illegal if the UN had anything to say about it), but they had taught her the value of hiding in plain sight. The windows would be boarded up from the inside, accessible only by the teachers; the lights turned down so dim that you could barely see your own feet as you tripped over abandoned weapons.

 

Her civilian clothes would only act as a shield for so much longer. This was a bad part of town—either some crackhead would come to try and mug her, or some assassin would come to try and murder her. Natasha was going for option three.

 

(Option three was, according to Clint, called a “Natasha murder-fest, with a side of Clint.” But there was no Clint today. Only Natasha.)

 

(She decided not to think about the lack of backup. She would be fine.)

 

She stood from her seat on a park bench, adjusted her hood, and crossed the street. There were distant shouts of joy from around a trash-can fire from an alley two streets down. Natasha had passed them on her way over. They had leered at her with broken teeth and reddened eyes, their breath most likely smelling of cigarette smoke and death. She had kicked one in between the legs. They left her alone after that.

 

A man had slipped out of the Red Room a few seconds prior, a hood casting his face into deep shadow. She eyed him as she approached the building. He was leaning against it, a cigarette to his lips. It was a good cover—a smoke break. Natasha saw right through it. No one smoked in the Red Room. Only for missions.

 

She adjusted her step so it became a swagger, a flirtatious sway that would have made a lesser man swoon. This man’s dark eyes momentarily flicked down towards her feet, as though he could see the knives that would shoot out from inside the heels and eviscerate whatever, or whomever, was beneath her foot. He looked steadily back up at her face and she curled her lips in a smile

 

(Clint always compared her seductive smirk to a wolf’s smile. She told him off in Russian every time, calling him the sheepdog that allowed the wolf into the pasture. He always laughed and said no, it was the men she manipulated who let the wolf in.)

 

(Clint was visiting the farm. Natasha didn’t know when he’d be back. If he’d be back.)

 

“Hello there,” She purred. “What are you doing out at such a late hour?”

  
  
“I could say the same to you,” He responded, only a hint of a Russian accent coming through. “What is such a pretty lady doing out here? This is not a good place to be.”

  
  
“I just came back from a job,” She said, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “But I think my night is still unbooked.”

  
  
The man’s eyes glinted. “I will have to refrain, my good lady. You should go home.”

  
  
“Oh, I will,” She told him in Russian before jamming a Stark-designed tranquilizer hard into his neck. She covered his mouth with a gloved hand and let him sink to the ground. She whipped her head up and shook her red hair out of her face, eyes roving frantically over the windows to see if anyone had noticed that their guard had been taken down.

 

The streetlight behind her flickered and went out.

 

Like a ghost moving down a row and blowing out candles, the rest of the lights went out down, down the street until the only light was the faint horizon of Manhattan and the faint moonlight.

 

There was someone breathing behind her.

 

She whirled to her right and jabbed her assailant in the throat. The masked man choked and spluttered, stumbling back to clutch his neck, but three more Red Room assassins dropped down around her, and before Natasha could take down another, there was a prick in her neck. The world spun out from under her.

 

And that was when she came to, bound and gagged in a delivery truck.

 

Belatedly, it occurred to her that she should’ve told _someone_ where she was going. Maybe Stark, who wouldn’t insist on going with her or bug her too much about it, but he would at least have her whereabouts. She’d have to get out of this one on her own. Not the worst situation she’d been in, but she was captured by the same assassins that had trained her.

 

The truck shuddered to a stop with a violent jolt that nearly gave Natasha whiplash. The three men in the back of the truck with her all grunted as they stumbled into the wall. She shook her hair out of her face, ignoring the strands that stuck to the sweat on her skin, and twisted her hands in her bonds with renewed vigor. _Please be Stark, or Clint, she couldn’t handle the lectures from Captain America right now._

  
A cheerful, “Hi, guys!” made Natasha want to slam her head against the nearest metal surface. Stark’s kid.

 

“What are you doing all the way out here? This isn’t a good part of town, you know.” The ceiling of the truck dented inwards, as though something (or someone) had been thrown there with an excessive amount of force. “Hey, is that a UPS truck? You guys don’t look like UPS drivers!”

 

One of the men in the truck with her glared at her and said in broken English, “You will not move.”

 

There was the distinctive _crack_ of bone and a man’s yell of pain, and the guards clutched their guns in sweaty, terrified silence. There was a faint, “You guys actually stole a UPS truck? Seriously? Uh, can we be best friends?” There was an impact of a body hitting the ground, then stillness.

 

The doors of the truck open suddenly, with no warning, and Natasha ducked and pulled at her restraints harder as the three men opened fire with their automatic guns. She braced herself for the _smack_ of Stark’s kid hitting the pavement, his face blown off, but there was no one there.

 

“That wasn’t very nice!” A bright red, masked face appeared at the top of the opening, upside down with overly-large eyes. He quickly moved back up when the guns got aimed at his face. “I wanted to be friends, guys! Then, maybe I could, like, not hurt you?”

  
  
One of the men barked out, “Go!” in Russian, and the other two crept forwards. Natasha wasn’t sure why the Red Room-trained assassins were wielding machine guns, but, admittedly, they stood a better chance against the enhanced kid with guns than knives.

 

The remaining man gripped her hair and pulled her head backwards, forcing her to look at him upside down. He pulled a knife from the sheath on his waist that she had noted a while ago and traced her jawbone with it. “So beautiful,” He purred in Russian. “I suppose that is part of your allure, _chernaya vdova_.”

 

_Black widow._

 

One man yelled wordlessly and opened fire. The other one stood there, looking faintly dumbfounded and lacking a weapon. The orange sparks of the gunfire were the only light, illuminating the man’s eyes, his pupils blown wide in terror. If only they knew they were terrified of a fifteen-year-old.

 

Natasha refocused her gaze on the man with the knife, who traced the weapon down to the hollow of her throat. She glared at him.

 

Two silvery strands attached themselves to the men’s heads, and inexplicably (according to them, probably), their heads slammed together so harshly that the man above her winced. He resettled the knife against her jugular, putting so much pressure that she could feel her heartbeat and the blood slipping down the side of her neck like molasses. She shot a leg up and kicked him hard in the stomach, but he didn’t drop the knife. “You will call off your lackey,” He hissed, his Russian sounding more grating than his previous attempt at speaking English. “And perhaps we will spare your life.”

  
  
“Bro, that’s, like, creepy language nine out of ten!”

 

The kid was standing _right there_. God, Natasha was going to have to tell Stark that this kid needed a lesson on self-awareness. And self… everything. Jesus.

 

The kid shot out one of his webs, which didn’t stick to the _gun,_  which was a more pressing threat than the measly little knife that he’d grabbed instead. The man made a startled noise, and she headbutted him square in the forehead. He stumbled backwards, fumbling with his gun, and pointed it squarely at her.

 

“Seriously, man?” The kid said, and he was suddenly right beside Natasha as he kicked the guy so hard that he flew right through the metal of the truck and a good three dozen meters farther away.

 

“Are you okay, Miss Black Widow Romanov… uh, ma’am?”

 

She eyed the kid speculatively. “Untie me, and maybe I’ll show you a few things later at the Tower.”

  
  
The kid nearly cut his own fingers off with a laser that he (for some reason) had built into his web-shooters. The ropes fell away and she stood fluidly, the antithesis of the bumbling and fidgety Spider-Man. “Let’s go, _malen'kiy pauk_.”

 

“Uh…” Peter trailed off, following her as she hopped out of the van. “I understood the _spider_ part of that. Mostly becuase all those Russian mobsters that I fight all call me that. Did that mean—I think it meant _little spider_? Anyway, Miss Black Widow Romanov, I—”

  
  
“Natasha,” She interrupted, and surveyed the dim streets that they were on. “And nice translation. Where are we, kid?”

  
  
“Uh—Elmhurst,” He stammered. “But—why, exactly?”

  
  
“You care about kids, right?” She asked as she stalked down towards the East River. “Care about your city.”

  
  
“Um, yeah, obviously,” He said, hurrying after her.

 

“Then follow me,” She ordered. “And keep your mouth shut.”

 

\- -

 

Between the two of them, they made quick work of the Red Room. Natasha sent the kid to the upper levels, half because he could climb it with far more ease than she. (And the lesser-trained assassins and the children were on the top floors. She didn’t tell the kid that.)

 

She snapped all the Red Room assassins’ necks. Peter had only run into a few guards and webbed them to walls, focusing on the little kids who clutched him in sheer joy. He scooped a few up and Natasha took the one that was left and dropped them off at a police station.

 

Afterwards, Peter gushed to her about how _cool_ that was. “Maybe we could—”

  
  
The kid suddenly found himself on an empty street, accompanied only by the pigeon who was pecking the ground for scraps. Natasha was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait!! I've been swamped with finals and other stuff, and I just graduated today. I'm also super busy this weekend, so expect an update... Tuesday? Wednesday? I dunno, stay tuned.


	4. Bucky Barnes AKA the Winter Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick(ish) update! Yaaaay!
> 
> Not mine. Marvel's.

The first time Peter saw the homicidal guy with one arm, it was right after a fight with some armed robbers in Midtown.

 

Peter didn’t usually venture into Manhattan—the police and Iron Man had a big enough presence on that island that Spider-Man wasn’t really needed there. But Iron Man was in London for a conference, and the majority of the Avengers had either gone with him or, in the case of the two spies plus Cap and Falcon, were on some secret mission. Which left New York City practically undefended except for Spider-Man.

 

And Peter was having the time of his _life_. Manhattan, although louder and busier, was _so_ much taller than Queens. He could swing from skyscraper to skyscraper, hundreds of feet off the ground. It was exhilarating—now he knew why Mr. Stark loved flying over New York.

 

Spider-Man had just perched on top of a brownstone in the East Village, still smelling of smoke from the explosion over at the bank that he had managed to put out with a well-placed kick at a fire hydrant, when he heard a low, gravelly voice in an alley below him.

 

“Gimme all your money,” The man growled with a noticeable slur. “Or I’ll shoot you.”

 

Peter crept down the side of the building upside-down, surveying the would-be thief and the seemingly homeless man, bowed over his knees and rocking back and forth slightly. His hair hung in his face and he was wearing old, baggy clothing.

 

“That’s not very nice!” Peter chirped, shooting a web across the alley and jumping down so he was between the guy with the gun and the guy who was clearly _not_ in a good place right now. “Why can’t we just be friends? And if you want money, I’m pretty sure you could give that gun to someone and they’d pay you for it!”

 

The guy snarled and pointed his gun at Peter. “Or you could shoot me with it,” Peter said offhandedly, springing forwards as the man fired. The bullet pinged off the pavement as Peter snatched the gun out of the man’s hands and kicked him so hard that he slammed into a dumpster lid, which promptly closed on top of him. Peter webbed it shut and kicked the gun to the side.

 

The homeless man hadn’t moved, but he’d stopped rocking back and forth. Peter caught a glint of metal at his left side before he tucked his hands into his sleeves. Peter carefully knelt next to the guy and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man,” He said softly. “You good?”

 

The guy slowly lifted his head, his hair hanging in his face. His dark eyes glinted before he threw himself at Peter.

 

“What the—” Was all Peter managed before homicidal-homeless-guy slammed him into the pavement with a _metal arm._  One-Arm had caught his neck, and Peter could feel the metal fingers digging in, bruising and _ow_.

 

Air. Where was the air? He needed air.

 

Peter, his vision going spotty, lashed out blindly with both of his feet. One-Arm’s grip loosened as he took in Peter’s masked face just as Peter kicked him square in the stomach. He grunted as Peter generated enough force to knock him clear. He clutched at his throat, rolling to his side and coughing weakly. “Really, man?”

 

“Uh, sorry,” The man picked himself up, and Peter caught a good glimpse of the arm. It was eerily similar to—

 

“Oh my God, you’re Bucky Barnes!” He exclaimed, stumbling to his feet. “You’re Captain America’s friend? What… uh, what are you doing in a random alley in Manhattan?”

 

Bucky aimed a narrow look at him. “None of your business.”

 

“Um, okay,” Peter said. “Well, I’m P—Spider-Man.”

 

“Stark’s kid?” Bucky asked uncertainly.

 

Peter groaned dramatically, flopping down and plopping his butt on the ground. “Why does _everybody_ think that? All Falcon calls me is _Stark’s kid_. When Clint first met me, he called me _Stark’s kid_. When I rescued Black Widow, she called me _Stark’s kid_. Actually, I dunno what she called me, it was in Russian, but—”

 

“Where am I?” Bucky interrupted, looking slightly embarrassed. “I was—I thought—”

 

Peter had no idea what _that_ was about, but he glanced up at the street signs. “Uh, right by St. Mark’s Place. That’s Second Avenue over there,” He said, pointing towards the distant street. “Do you need any help getting back—”

 

When Peter looked back, the Winter Soldier was gone.

 

“Oh, come _on!”_ Peter exclaimed, throwing his hands up exasperatedly. He aimed a look at the downed mugger, who had escaped his dumpster confinement and was surveying the scene with a wide-eyed expression. “You saw that, right? You saw that. What is with these Russian super-spies disappearing on me? This is ridiculous.”

 

—

 

The second time Peter saw the Winter Soldier, they were both tied up in a HYDRA facility.

 

Peter came to quickly, he thought, which wasn’t exactly surprising due to his metabolism that rivaled Captain America’s. He was greeted by the unpleasant sensation of the _worst hangover ever._ And even though he had never even _had_ a hangover, from what Mr. Stark had described them as, this was a bad one. His head throbbed, his gut roiled, and he could hear blood pumping in the back of his head in time with his spider-sense.

 

 _Throb_.

 

He was in a room that resembled an interrogation room that he’d seen once on a TV show he’d watched with May and Ben. He could feel metal biting into his wrists and ankles, and a glance told him that they were vibranium. Not good.

 

 _Throb_.

 

A quick tug confirmed his suspicions. He wouldn’t be breaking these cuffs anytime soon.

 

Okay. Plan B. If that existed.

 

There was a mirror on the left wall, presumably two-way, and an empty chair across from him. Both the chairs were metal and cold, but they didn’t look to be vibranium like the cuffs were. That was an option.

 

 _Throb_.

 

A fluorescent light was hanging above his head. There was no wire or any opening to the ceiling. No wires or other electric things in the entire room, actually. Not even a security camera. Peter wondered why—he wasn’t an mechanical genius like Mr. Stark. There was only so much he could do with a few wires and a light bulb.

 

 _Throb_.

 

There was a vent in the corner, near the ceiling. A door next to the mirror, with no visible handle. Neither were perfect options. Peter really didn’t want to know if he could fit through that vent.

 

He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to pry the door open. Wasn’t sure if he was stuck in here.

 

_Throb._

 

Peter tried not to think about what was going to happen to him in here. He didn’t know who had him, didn’t know where he was. Mr. Stark didn’t know where he was. He could feel a prickling in his neck, presumably where a needle had been stuck, but he had no recollection of anything beyond hopping out of his bedroom window in his Spider-suit after finishing his chem homework.

 

_Throb._

 

Peter caught muffled voices having a heated debate, presumably outside the door. Water rushed through the pipes above his head as the door slid open.

 

So it was a sliding door. Progress. That was progress.

 

Peter was pretty sure there was still drugs in his system. His thought were stunted and half-formed, his head full of cotton. His hands flexed uselessly in the vibranium cuffs.

 

 _Throb_.

 

A man stepped through the opening. Peter got a glimpse of soldiers in black fatigues and flashing security monitors before the door slid closed again.

 

This man’s mustache was ridiculous. Yeah, Peter was probably still kind of high. He hadn’t even thought it was _possible_ for him to get high anymore.

 

“Peter Parker,” The man said, his Russian accent thickening his words until they were nearly incomprehensible. Or maybe they were only incomprehensible because his head was throbbing too hard for him to hear properly. “Intern at Stark Industries, correct?”

 

_Throb._

 

He knew about Mr. Stark. But did he know about—

 

“I hear you are quite formidable in biophysics,” The man that Peter had decided was most likely HYDRA commented as though it were some great accomplishment that he knew that. “A gifted boy.”

 

_Throb._

 

“Uh, I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” Peter told him, pulling at the cuffs. “I mean, these are, like, vibranium, right? Why do you need vibranium cuffs for some random kid from Queens?”

 

“Ah, the vibranium,” The man smiled gruesomely, like he’d forgotten about the whole thing. Peter doubted it. “Salvaged from the ruins of Sokovia after the Ultron incident.”

 

_Throb._

 

“Good for you, but why do you need it for _me_?”

 

Peter had a plan. Or a semblance of a plan. Or—

 

Yeah, okay, he didn’t have a plan. He had, like, a concept. A vague idea of what he was gonna do.

 

“You are special, Mr. Parker,” Mustache-man said, as though it was obvious. “Not everyone can do what you do. HYDRA could use your abilities.”

 

 _Throb_.

 

“No thanks.” Peter told him flatly, trying not to give away the raw panic fluttering in his stomach, the way that his spider-sense was beginning to scream. _Identity identity identity identity identity identity identity, May, Ned, Mr. Stark—_

 

The man breezed on like Peter had never spoken. “You have seen your mentor’s arc reactor designs, yes? You could recreate them?”

 

_Throb._

 

So that was this was about. Not Spider-Man or his enhancements. Just tech. That, Peter could work with.

 

Peter’s head was still pounding. He felt like he was going to throw up.

 

_Throb._

 

He could feel his Spider-Man suit underneath his sweatshirt. He had his webshooters on—had they not searched him?

 

It didn’t matter. He wrapped his hands around the armrests of the chair he was cuffed to. The metal creaked and bent.

 

 _Throb_.

 

Peter was pretty sure that the guy was still talking, but the ringing in his ears was drowning out any noises other than the pounding of his head. The HYDRA agent offered Peter a sickly sweet smile, and his ears cleared long enough for Peter to hear him offer, “So what do you say?”

 

_Throb._

 

“I say…” Peter trailed off, trying to stall as he felt the armrest detach from the rest of the chair. His spider-sense was humming at him, telling him _get out get out getoutgetout_ now. Adrenaline cleared away some of his headache as he curled his fists and launched himself at the man.

 

Mustache-man yelled in shock as Peter knocked him to the floor. Even though he was dizzy and drugged, Peter was still more than a match for him. Peter grasped the dismembered chair and used it to hit the agent squarely over the head.

 

There were faint shouts of alarm coming from the control room, as well as the conspicuous sound of guns being loaded.

 

Okay, maybe Peter hadn’t thought this all the way through. Door or vent, door or vent, door or vent—

 

Aforementioned door opened, revealing three fully geared HYDRA agents wielding weapons that Peter had only seen state troopers use in the rare occasions where the National Guard had been called in. Oops. Okay, door.

 

Peter couldn’t hear any alarms. That was good. That meant that they didn’t think this was too big of a deal. There was another guy in the control room, at the computer. Peter could hear his keys clacking as he typed. Not good.

 

The agents flicked off the safeties of their guns, his spider-sense began to scream, and Peter moved.

 

He swept the agent closest to him’s feet out from under him, which knocked him into the agent to his right. As both of them were thrown off balance, Peter shot a web at the third and yanked the weapon out of his hands. Things One and Two started getting to their feet, so Peter webbed both of their helmeted heads and flung them together. They hit their heads together so hard that their helmets cracked, and they crumpled to the ground, out cold.

 

“Ouch,” Peter said with only a trace of Spider-Man’s usual arrogance. “That looks like it hurt. Here, dude, let me help you.”

 

Thing Three was getting over his shock, and he pulled a knife out of his sleeve. Peter, without ceremony, grabbed his abused chair and threw it so hard at Thing Three’s head that the legs fell off. Thing Three was down for the count.

 

Peter heard the man in the control room swear as he began typing frantically. He knew that Keyboard-guy (jeez, high brain, come up with better names) would be sounding the alarm, and Peter didn’t want that to happen. Obviously.

 

The door began to close, and Peter grabbed it as it attempted to eat his fingers. He pulled and ripped the door right out of the wall. Whoopsie.

 

“Hey, man!” Peter exclaimed as he skipped cheerfully into the room, not hesitating as his spider-sense hummed softly and he was met with shaking hands and a handgun. He webbed the gun out of Keyboard-guy’s hands and pulled the unfortunate man out of his chair. “Nice beard, dude,” Peter told him as he passed.

 

Keyboard-guy (Keyboard-man? Peter’s brain has gone through a blender) sneered and attempted to grab Peter’s foot, and Peter kicked him in the head, knocking him to the floor. Then he noted the blinking lights. And more noticeably, the glass of water sitting a few feet away.

 

“Huh, I wonder what would happen if I—” Peter poured the water all over the computers, and sparks popped and electricity hissed. The screens flickered out. “Oh, shoot! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to! But could I just borrow—”

 

Peter yanked off the guy’s vest and helmet and pulled them onto himself. He was already wearing black pants, so he hoped that this disguise would be enough for him to sneak out unnoticed. Peter glanced briefly at the emergency signal button on his webshooters, which blinked up red at him. No signal. Typical.

 

One of the screens flickered back on, and an announcement came over the speakers. Peter watched.

 

There was a man with shaggy hair restrained in a tube-thing, a man that Peter _recognized_ from somewhere. It looked like he was being held right in front of an ice-cold, steaming chamber. Peter wondered if it was one of their crazy science experiments, like the Maximoff twins had been.

 

“Prep for cryo submersion,” The speakers said. “Subject Winter Soldier.”

 

The guy lifted his head and tried to break free with his _metal arm_ and holy crap that was Bucky Barnes—

 

“Shit!” Peter hissed, then yanked up Keyboard-guy by his collar. Peter wasn’t joking around anymore. “Where is the Winter Soldier?”

 

The man sneered again and shook his head. “Look, I swear to God, I will shoot you in the head and ask one of the other guys. Don’t test me,” Peter told him, using his stone-cold mask that he’d learned from Tony Stark. “Tell me where that is.”

 

Fear twisted Keyboard-man’s expression, and he spat at Peter’s feet. “Take a right down the hallway, then a left, another left, then open the door on your right. He’ll be in isolation.”

 

“Thank you,” Peter said, then punched him square in the face.

 

His adrenaline was fading. His headache was coming back with a vengeance.

 

 _Throb_.

 

There was no one in the hallways. They were strangely deserted, and as Peter passed a room that looked like barracks, he found out why. They were all sitting in front of a screen, pointing at it and laughing. It was an image of Bucky, pinned and struggling in his pod-thing.

 

Peter kept going, swallowing back a gag. How could humanity be so cruel? Sure, he fought criminals every day, but most of them were just scrounging for scraps, trying to survive, not laughing at others’ suffering.

 

_Throb._

 

“Right, left, left, right,” Peter whispered to himself. “Or was it right, right, left, right? Oh, man—”

 

He took his last left (or right, his brain was too addled to really notice), and there was a door reading RESTRICTED ACCESS. LEVEL X CREDENTIALS REQUIRED.

 

Bingo. Level ten. Well, Peter wasn’t level ten anything at HYDRA, but he had passed level ten in Mario, so that had to count for something. There was a keycard slot blinking red, but Peter simply wrapped his fingers around the hinges and snapped them off. The door fell with a loud _bang_. Peter winced.

 

 _Throb_.

 

He crept into the dark room, his fingers curling into anxious fists. He could hear ragged breathing ahead of him, but it was deep enough that Peter was pretty sure that Bucky was unconscious. He wasn’t sure if that made his job easier or harder.

 

He caught sight of a security camera, its red light blinking steadily, and Peter shot a web at the lens. He had to _go_ —the guards would realize soon that something was up, regardless of the darkness of the room.

 

Peter tried to pretend his hands weren’t trembling. Tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, that Mr. Stark was coming, that he wasn’t stuck in these stupid cuffs, that he’d be able to see May and hug her and she would hold him until he couldn’t breathe—

 

Peter stubbed his toe on something hard. “ _Ow!_ ”

 

His exclamation echoed through the room.

 

 _Throb_.

 

Bile burned the back of Peter’s throat as he saw Bucky, tied up and hanging limp as the pod slowly lowered itself. His calves were already submerged. “Shit!” Peter hissed.

 

He frantically pulled at the not-vibranium cuffs (seriously, why didn’t they give the Winter Soldier vibranium cuffs? Wait, that’s stupid, they’ve had Bucky for seventy years, they know how strong he is) and they snapped off. Bucky fell bonelessly and Peter barely managed to catch him.

 

Alarms blared red and loud and Peter resisted the urge to cover his ears. Adrenaline pumped again and he hefted Bucky and said to the deaf assassin, “Time to go!"

 

_Throb._

 

\---

 

“You know,” Peter panted as he half-ran, half stumbled down the passage, Bucky’s arm slung over his shoulders, “This whole _sassy Spider-Man_ thing is a lot easier if I have someone to play off of. Maybe you should deliver some cutting one-liners. Hey, maybe you’re as quick-witted as I am. That would be cool.”

 

“Hey!” A foreign voice (definitely Russian, come _on,_ let Peter have some peace) called. “Stop!”

 

“Sorry, buddy, no can do!” Peter yelled, shooting a poorly-aimed web that caught the dude right in the face.

 

He caught a glimpse of sunlight, heard the faint noise of traffic, and kicked down a final door into the sunlight. There was the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building—seriously? They couldn’t even bother to move them out of _New York_?

 

“Yes!” Peter exclaimed, pulling his sleeve back and pressing the now-white button. It made a pleasant _ding,_  as though its sole purpose wasn’t to warn Mr. Stark that Peter was in life-threatening danger or another just-as-significant problem, like an unconscious and potentially half-dead Bucky Barnes.

 

Peter wondered briefly where his mask was—more importantly, where his backpack was. Whatever. Mr. Stark could probably track it down.

 

The distinct whine of repulsors had Peter looking up, and Iron Man slammed into the pavement. “Kid,” Mr. Stark’s totally-not-frantic voice came through the mask before the visor flipped up and the suit peeled off the billionaire. “What’s going on, where have you—”

 

He caught sight of Bucky and his expression changed to confusion. “Oh. Um, why do you have Cap’s friend?”

 

Peter waved his hands around vaguely, nearly dropping Bucky. _Get it together, Parker, you aren’t drugged anymore, maybe._ His headache was coming back. “Oh, you know, HYDRA, arc reactors, internships, whatever—”

 

“ _What?_ ” Mr. Stark demanded as though he made no sense. Okay, maybe he didn’t. Whatever.

 

“All right, look, kid. We’ll get some medics and get it all checked out,” Mr. Stark said, but Peter shook his head frantically. “No, no, no, I don’t have my mask, Mr. Stark. I’ll just go home, you take care of Bucky, I’m okay.”

 

A strange expression overtook Mr. Stark’s face, but he shook his head resignedly. “Go take a nap, kid. You look like hell. Pass him over.”

 

Peter did. Happily. And he only stumbled a tiny bit and only stumbled _into_ Mr. Stark a tiny bit. _More than a tiny bit, Parker, get it together! Shut up, brain._

 

Mr. Stark’s face clouded, and he looked like he was about to stop Peter, but he didn’t, and Peter jogged off in the direction of home.

 

\---

 

Two minutes later, after Peter was gone and the medics still hadn’t arrived, Bucky woke up. He shook his head blearily (like a dog, Tony thought. A deadly, metal-pawed dog) and glanced up. “What happened?”

 

Oh God, the dude was _groggy_. If Tony hadn’t known it had been HYDRA, the guys who had tortured Bucky for seventy years, he would’ve laughed. Still, he said, “You got rescued by a fifteen-year-old, dude. Your years are catching up to you.”

 

Bucky blinked a few times before he started to fall from his propped-up position against Tony’s unoccupied suit. “Spider-Kid?” He said, and Tony wondered how Bucky even _knew_ Peter. “Thank ’im for me,” He said, his words slurring together slightly. The poor guy was clearly on the verge of passing out again.

 

“I will,” Tony promised. Bucky fell asleep again.

 

Exactly four minutes later, Tony forgot all about thanking the kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of y'all are noticing this repeated theme of Peter not being thanked. Very observant. Keep that in mind. ;)
> 
> Also, thanks to all of you guys for your support! Keep an eye out for another update on... Friday. Sure. Why not? Everything is coming out on Friday. Incredibles II, anyone?!?!?! God, I'm so excited. 
> 
> Kudos and comments make me smile :). No, I swear, ask my betas. I get giddy when I see how many people love this fic. :)
> 
> (FRIDAY, everyone. Friday. No, not the AI. Update on Friday. The long-awaited Peter Parker saves Tony Stark chapter.)


	5. Tony Stark AKA Iron Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not mine. Marvel’s. 
> 
> HERE IT IS! The long-awaited (I think. I hope?) chapter where Peter saves Tony. Huzzah. 
> 
> (scattered applause. screams from my beta—shut up, C). 
> 
> Enjoy!!
> 
> Edit: Inspired by ‘5 Times Peter Parker Saved Tony Stark’ Chapter 3 by madasthesea. I would link it, but I don’t know how. :|. Go check it out!! (And thanks for bringing it to my attention!) 
> 
> Again, enjoy!! And look out for (hopefully) Wednesday!

When Mr. Stark knocked on his bedroom door at  _ it’s-too-early _ AM on a Saturday, Peter had had no idea what would happen only a few hours later. 

 

Tony opened the door, sunglasses in place, clapping  briskly as though rousing a sleepy dog. “Rise and shine, kid!” The billionaire announced, attempting (and failing) to pull the blanket off of Peter. 

 

Joke’s on him. Peter had heard him before he even walked in the apartment, and heard Aunt May’s demand of  _ are you taking him out of state?  _  Which was probably born of the time when Mr. Stark took him to New Mexico to fight some giant nuclear-augmented snail. That snail had been  _ nasty _ —it had taken Mr. Stark a few days to attempt to get all the slime out of Peter’s suit before he gave up and made a brand-new one. There had been snail-juice in Peter’s hair for  _ days _ and May never let Mr. Stark live it down. 

 

Anyway, Tony without the suit couldn’t compare to Peter’s strength. Especially when it came to his blanket in the mornings. No way was he getting it. 

 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter groaned, pulling said blanket over his head. “It’s too early. And it’s a  _ Saturday _ .”

 

“I am aware of what day it is. C’mon, up. I’ve got some new ideas for your suit.” Peter’s spider sense hummed at the base of his skull and he lifted an arm and snagged the T-shirt that Tony had thrown at him without opening his eyes. 

 

Peter peered up blearily at the Avenger, then sighed defeatedly. “Fine.”

 

Ten minutes later, they were striding through the streets of Queens, Peter still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “What kind of ideas for the suit?” Peter asked as he took a bite of his breakfast (an apple). “If it’s about Karen, I like her the way she is.”

 

“No, it’s not about your ridiculously named AI.” Mr. Stark snatched the apple out of Peter’s hands and tossed it into a random alley. 

 

“Hey,” Peter complained. “That’s littering. And my breakfast.”

 

“Updated protocols, stronger material,” Mr. Stark continued, ignoring Peter’s protest. “More bulletproof, since you seem so determined to step in front of guns.” Tony grasped his shoulder and steered him into a café that Peter would never step  _ foot _ into, mostly because one coffee exceeded the cost of his monthly rent.

 

Okay, that was an exaggeration, but it was  _ expensive _ . A host bowed his head to them and led them to a table before Peter could say a word in protestaqa, probably something like  _ Mr. Stark, this is too much! _ but the billionaire sat across from Peter and shoved a menu under his nose. “Breakfast.” He said briefly. “Get whatever you want.”

 

“Mr. Stark—” Peter began to protest, but the Avenger cut him off with a pinching hand gesture. “This is your breakfast, so eat up.”

 

Peter ended up ordering pancakes, but Mr. Stark also ordered eggs (over-easy) and bacon (well-done) for him along with the carbs. He ordered only a coffee for himself and just watched Peter eat with the vigor of a teenage superhuman with a super-metabolism. 

 

“So,” Peter said between mouthfuls of eggs. “Why’d you come all the way out here? You could’ve just had Happy pick me up, or I could’ve walked. Or swung, or whatever.”

 

Mr. Stark took a sip of his coffee and grimaced, setting it aside. “Maybe I wanted to spend time with you.”

 

Peter fixed him with a deadpan look. Tony threw up his hands in exasperation. “Okay,  _ fine _ , Happy’s not around and DUM-E locked me out of the garage. Satisfied?”

 

Peter smirked, but didn’t comment. “Okay, but have you ever heard of Uber? Or a taxi? Or the train, or—”

 

The billionaire made such a disgusted face that it would be ingrained in Peter’s memory forever. He burst out laughing and couldn’t breathe for a good thirty seconds. 

 

“Well, if you’re quite finished.” Mr. Stark told him, sounding vaguely insulted. He dropped a check on the table and pulled Peter out of his seat by his upper arm. The still-giggling boy offered no resistance, despite him being able to crush the bones in Tony’s hand like twigs. The older man pulled him out of the restaurant in the direction of the Williamsburg Bridge. 

 

“God.” Tony muttered. “No respect.”

 

“No respect at all.” Peter agreed, still snorting. 

 

—-

[Tony POV]

 

They were about halfway along the East River when Peter stopped dead; Tony actually kept going a few more steps before he realized that Peter wasn’t with him. The boy was rigid, staring straight at an abandoned warehouse about fifty yards off the main road. It wasn’t any different than most of the other —there was a faded Coca-Cola sign hanging haphazardly on the front, along with a few hundred layers of graffiti. But Peter was staring at it, seemingly petrified. 

 

“Kid?” Tony asked. “ _ Kid _ . What’s wrong?”

 

“There’s something wrong in there.” Peter said, hands fisted. His eyes never left the building. “Something’s gonna happen. Something bad. I can feel it, Mr. Stark.”

 

Tony frowned. “Okay. I’ll go in there quickly and—”

 

“ _ No _ !” Peter hissed vehemently. “You’re not going in there alone!”

 

“Kid, relax.” Tony told him. “I’m not completely defenseless, and I’m the adult.”

 

“The adult  _ without  _ his set of impenetrable armor.” Peter insisted. 

 

Tony rolled his eyes. “I’m going in there. Chances are, it’s nothing.”

 

Peter glared stubbornly at him, and when Tony started for the door of the warehouse, browned by rust, Peter followed him. As soon as Tony drew a breath to argue, he could see Peter’s jaw set, and he knew that he’d never get the too-brave-for-his-own-good kid to listen. He heaved a sigh of defeat and reached for the knob. “Stay close to me.”

 

There was a chain hanging around the two handles, just as rusty as the doors themselves, but the ends of it dangled loosely in the light breeze.

 

Tony frowned and gently pulled the the doors open. They made a wretched groaning sound as the rusted hinges moved for the first time in what was most likely years. Tony winced, and Peter, with his heightened senses, clapped his hands over his ears. 

 

The lack of windows emphasized the darkness inside the building, but a flashlight beam that didn’t belong to Tony or Peter illuminated one of the far walls. There was another man, hunched over a folding table with a pair of wire cutters and a roll of electrical tape. There was a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck, and his arms trembled. He seemed to not have heard them, as he was wearing a pair of heavy-duty noise cancelling headphones, like the ones construction workers used while operating heavy equipment. 

 

Tony frowned as he began steadily approaching the man, Peter by his shoulder. He squinted, and was able to make out a metal briefcase labeled CONFIDENTIAL _.  _ It had been opened and discarded, its lid hanging open. 

 

Tony could feel a knot building in his stomach as he kept coming closer to the man. His shoes scuffed on the dirty concrete, and Peter’s hands were clenched so tight his knuckles were bloodless. 

 

The strange man suddenly stood up straight and turned for the exit, coming face-to-face with Peter and Tony. He gasped loudly, eyes wild, and bolted straight forwards. Peter moved to intercept him, but Tony nudged him aside and stepped in the man’s path. “What are you doing?” Tony demanded loudly, but the man pushed him into Peter and burst out the doors. 

 

Tony picked himself off of Peter with a groan. “Well, that was interesting.”

 

Peter shot upright with a yelp and looked wildly towards the desk. “You didn’t set a timer, right?”

 

“No, why—”

 

“ _ Something is ticking _ !” Peter said frantically, scrambling towards the table. He seemed to glimpse something, then stopped short, looking back at Tony.  _ “Run!” _

 

Too late. Tony stepped back in alarm, and Peter sprinted desperately, but light exploded in Tony’s vision and he was thrown backwards. 

 

Bomb. 

 

From the sound of the explosion, it was small-scale, but there seemed to be some form of explosives on the support columns of the warehouse, because they all blew out spontaneously, and the ceiling shuddered and fell. 

 

Even though Tony was going to die, the only thing he could think was  _ Not my kid.  _

 

Just as Tony was about to be crushed, he felt something tackle him to the ground, and there was no slab of twenty-ton concrete on top of him. He dared to look up, and felt all the air that remained in his lungs (which wasn’t much) leave with a  _ whoosh.  _

 

Peter— _ his kid _ , his brain helpfully supplied—was standing over him, with the said ten-ton slab of concrete balanced on his back and arms. As Tony watched, Peter grunted and fell onto one knee. 

 

And for once in his life, Tony found himself speechless. 

 

“M–Mr. Stark.” Peter stammered, voice breathy and strained. “Go.”

 

Tony’s gaze snapped behind himself, and sure enough, Peter had shoved him far enough that the half-collapsed doorway was still visible and only a few meters away. There was still no sign or any emergency vehicles. But if Tony left–

 

“No way, kid.” Tony shook his head. “I’m not leaving you here.”

 

His resolve was strong until Peter groaned and braced the ceiling against his forearms for extra support. “Mr. Stark, p–please.” He pleaded, and his eyes were filming over. Tony’s own eyes were suspiciously wet. 

 

“Peter–” Tony tried again, but it was no good. He could tell nothing would stop Peter from insisting that he escape except if Tony physically stopped him. 

 

“Mr. Stark, you can–you can help me get out better if–if–if–” Peter was stammering worse than before, as though the exertion was making it hard to focus. “–if I don’t have to worry about c–crushing you, too. Please.”

 

Defeatedly, crushing down the inexplicable instinct that saving this kid was more important than his own life, Tony crawled towards the exit, not caring for the moment about his expensive suit being ruined by concrete dust and rust. He paused at the doorway as the ceiling shuddered again, and caught one last glimpse of Peter, gasping for breath, silhouetted by the morning sun, holding up a roof that would need heavy-duty cranes to lift—just to save Tony. 

 

God, his kid was amazing. When they got out of here, Tony would tell him that. 

 

He pulled himself out into the sunlight and stumbled to his feet, crouching by the entrance. As though some magic had been holding the doorway up, it collapsed, leaving only a tony Peter-sized gap in the rubble. “Okay, kid,” He called into the half-collapsed building. “What now?”

 

“I’m—I’m working on it!” Peter’s voice was higher-pitched than normal, reedy and terrified. “I’m gonna t–try to put it down? If I–if I can move enough towards the entrance, I can–”

 

The thin metal walls, collapsed on top of the concrete, groaned and shifted as Peter moved. He seemed to adjust the weight on his shoulders and try to shuffle towards the door. Tony knew what the kid was going to attempt–he was going to make his way towards the entrance whilst holding the ceiling up enough to prevent crushing him, then try to escape, but it was a risky gamble. Tony waited several anxious moments before asking. “You good, kid?”

 

Peter’s voice was closer than Tony had expected. “Y–yeah, but, uh, could you pull as hard as you can when I, uh, stick my hand out? Because I’m gonna shove it up and then get out, so…” He grunted as he moved again. 

 

“Yeah, kid. Just hang on. I’ve got you.” Tony hadn’t felt this anxious since Pepper had been kidnapped by that maniac and infected with Extremis. Tony waited one charged moment, two, before he felt something hit the still-standing wall and Peter’s dirty and scraped hand stuck out of a gap in the rubble. 

 

Tony pulled on it with all his might, and Peter had to have helped, because he skidded right out onto Tony’s chest, and the inventor was suddenly on his back with the teenager on top of him. 

 

Tony could hear ambulances and police cars approaching, but their sirens were pretty far-off, and Peter seemed to content to lay there, wheezing in breaths as though he was tasting air for the first time. Tony could feel minute trembles wracking the boy’s frame, and he put one of his arms around him. 

 

After a while, Peter rolled off of Tony and laid on his back, still gasping for breath. Tony sat up and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. 

 

“That was some brave stuff, kid.” Tony told him. “You okay?”

 

Peter nodded unconvincingly and attempted to sit up. Tony subtly guided much of the boy’s weight into a sitting position, and the kid squeezed his eyes closed. “Y–yeah. Just… bad memories.”

 

“ _ Bad memories _ ?” Tony repeated. “This has happened before?”

 

Peter’s eyes shot open, and his breathing sped up again. “Um–”

 

“When?” Tony demanded. He knew he shouldn’t be pushing the kid, but why hadn’t Peter’s AI notified him that the fifteen-year-old was trapped beneath an entire building. “Why didn’t your AI tell me?”

 

“Because you took the suit!” Peter snapped, then tried to shift away from Tony and ultimately failing since the it was the inventor that was keeping him upright. 

 

“You took the suit.” Peter repeated, quieter. “And he was going to rob your plane, and he–he trapped me in the warehouse and knocked out the supports. Okay?”

 

Tony inwardly cursed himself.  _ You took the suit.  _ Of course, losing the suit wouldn’t stop Peter from being Spider-Man. He’d been doing it before Tony had found him, and Tony should’ve figured that Peter would probably just put his old pajamas on and go out to fight Toomes head-on. And he had.  _ You obtuse, moronic asshole, how could you be so  _ stupid _ – _

 

“Dammit, Peter,” Tony sighed, pulling the kid’s head to his chest and hugging his trembling shoulders hesitantly. “I’m sorry.”

 

The sirens grew louder, and Peter looked up. “They’re on their way. They caught the guy that blew it. He was speeding and they caught him with some illegal HYDRA stuff. He was—he was HYDRA.”

 

Right. Super-hearing. 

 

“Well, whaddya say that we get out of here, huh, squirt?”

 

Peter nodded shakily and Tony pulled him to his feet. Peter wobbled for a moment, then his knees buckled. Tony caught him around the shoulders and held him up. With one hand, he pulled out his phone (unbroken, somehow) and clicked on the first number that popped up on the screen.

 

When he heard the phone pick up, Tony said, “Happy, I need you to come and pick us up. Yes, I know. It’s the kid. Yeah. No. Five minutes? Fine. Meet you on–uh… River Street. Yeah, Queens.”   
  
“I thought Happy was on his day off?” Peter asked, voice weak but curious nonetheless. 

 

“Eh,” Tony said offhandedly. “He can deal.”

 

The two superheroes slowly made their way towards the road, Peter’s arm slung over Tony’s shoulders with the billionaire supporting much of his weight. Tony still felt the minute tremors wracking the boy’s frame, and he fought back another wave of guilt. He could tell that the shaking wasn’t entirely from exhaustion, and he cursed himself again for letting the kid fight Toomes by himself. 

 

Tony had a lot to make up for. 

 

Happy pulled up a few minutes later, and Tony opened the door and gently pushed Peter into the car. He got in after the kid and told Happy, “Tower.”   
  
To his credit, Happy didn’t question it. He just shot a concerned look at Peter and turned the keys in the ignition. Peter curled against Tony’s side and fell asleep, and Tony hesitantly wrapped an arm around the kid. Peter snuggled closer.

 

Happy smirked at Tony in the mirror, and Tony stuck his tongue out and mouthed  _ you wish _ . Happy rolled his eyes and returned his gaze to the road. 

 

They dropped the kid off in Queens into the waiting arms of Aunt Hottie. She noted the concrete dust, the shaken look in Peter’s eyes and in his posture, and glared at Tony. To be fair, he deserved it. 

 

Tony isolated himself in his lab for two days, making sure that the AI or the suit would never fail Peter again. He couldn’t do anything about himself—it was only a matter of time before Tony failed Peter again—so the suit would have to do. 

 

It occurred to him as he was about to pass out on his bed that he’d never thanked the kid. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that was satisfactory. I responded to a few more effusive comments left on this chapter. I’m glad most people are as excited for Incredibles II as I am. 
> 
> Next update will take a little longer. Wednesday, maybe? It might end up being two parts— it’s nearly 2000 words already and I haven’t even gotten to Peter POV yet. I will update this note with a final publish date once I make one. 
> 
> As always, kudos and comments make my day. <3\. I love y’all. See you Wednesday (hopefully). 
> 
> (As requested—NO SPOILERS FOR INCREDIBLES II IN COMMENTS. I... can’t believe I had to write that.)


	6. Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man PART 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I said maybe Wednesday, and it's Thursday, so... hehe. 
> 
> I also said maybe two parts, and it's two parts, so... I told the truth there! 
> 
> Enjoy! Beta'd by SeetheSea, who for some reason, loves arguing with me over moot points in my writing. Thanks. Not mine. Marvel's.

They were in an Avengers meeting when it happened. 

 

It was a standard briefing, with Steve up at the front of the room presenting the low-tier HYDRA base that had held Spider-Man and Bucky Barnes for about two hours and then sent a bomber to lure in Tony Stark and Spider-Man. They were going to send in a few Avengers to clear it out once and for all. Two times was enough.

 

Tony volunteered. The whole team did, actually, but it was decided that Iron Man  _ was going _ . Like hell was Tony gonna let his kid be targeted by those German assholes anymore. The mission was going to be the next day, and Steve was just getting into the logistics of it. 

 

But then Maria Hill burst in, the door banging harshly against the wall over FRIDAY’s interjections of  _ clearance, Ms. Hill, clearance _ . She held a tablet in one hand and had the other hand on her gun holster.

 

Clint and Natasha were up before Tony could blink, but Hill’s eyes went straight to Tony. “Stark,” She said, her usual brisk and professional tone slightly broken by something that couldn’t be described as anything but  _ panic _ . “There’s been an incident.”

 

“What kind of incident?” Tony heard himself ask, his uncaring-billionaire persona firmly in place. Inside, he was screaming  _ not Peter not Peter not Peter or Pepper but please not Peter _ . Hill had met the kid once, and like every other person that had made his acquaintance, Tony was pretty sure she’d sworn to die for the kid. “An-illegitimate-child-has-been-revealed kind of incident, or a world-ending type of incident? I’ve got a bunch of scenarios in my head and none of them are—”

 

“Adrian Toomes just broke out of prison,” She interrupted, shoving the tablet under his nose. There was a blurry video of a burning hole blown in the prison that Toomes had been sent to—Tony recognized it, of course. “With aid of HYDRA weaponry. He’s headed back to Queens.”

 

The whole room had simultaneously stopped moving. Even Barnes had a concerned look on his face, which was the most emotion Tony had ever seen him display since that one time he’d heard that Steve was almost killed on that one mission before the kid saved him. Although, to be fair, he didn’t look  _ that _ concerned, but it was probably because they had no idea who Toomes was. But Tony did.  _ Oh God, oh God _ . 

 

“Shit,” Tony hissed, shooting to his feet and starting for the door. His hand hovered unconsciously on the port for the nanoparticles that he’d had installed a few weeks before—coincidentally (or not) right after the whole Skyfall incident, except the “fall” was the building and the savior was Peter. “No, no, no,” Tony muttered, but Hill put a harsh hand on his chest and stopped him. “Stark.”

 

“Get out of the way, Hill, I swear to God,” Tony told her as Natasha stalked over, coming up beside him. He attempted to sidestep the two stubborn women. He should’ve known better than to try (he did know better, actually), because holy  _ hell _ were these two women the scariest people he’d met since Pepper Potts. 

 

“Tony, what’s going on?” Natasha asked calmly, lightly grasping his wrists and forcing him to turn towards her, to face the rest of the Avengers. Too calm, how was she so calm, didn’t she know what was going on, Peter was—

 

“Toomes knows who he is!” Tony burst out (loud, too loud, Stark, get it together). “Peter put him in prison and I kept him there because Toomes  _ knows who he is _ ! Where he lives! Who he hangs out with! And the kid put him in prison for life! Who do you think he’s going for, Nat?”

 

Tony was vaguely aware that he was hyperventilating. Also more keenly aware of the rest of the Avengers’ reactions. 

 

Sam and Vision both had concerned looks on their faces, but face it, they’d barely worked with the kid and hardly knew him. Even with their super-ninja-spy-assassin training, Tony could tell that Natasha and Clint were really upset. Huh. Tony hadn’t known that they even knew Peter. Steve had his classic golden-retriever-I’m-concerned-and-Captain-America face on, but there was an underlying  _ guilt _ there, and Barnes looked, again,  _ concerned _ . Wanda’s expression had slammed shut. 

 

Jesus, Tony’s kid had all the Avengers in love with him. Classic. Of course Peter wouldn’t have made any other impression. But right now, his kid was in danger, Toomes was coming for him  _ right now _ , and Tony didn’t have time to see their worry, he had to see Peter’s face—

 

“Hill, where is Toomes now?” Natasha asked briskly, turning away and towards the screens of the forgotten HYDRA base. She swiped the images to the side and pulled up a map of the city, then zoomed in on Queens. “It’s the middle of the day, Peter is in school, right?”

 

Tony shook his head miserably. “It’s Memorial Day weekend. He has a half-day. School ended a half an hour ago. He’ll probably be on patrol.”

 

“ _ School _ ?” Sam asked incredulously. Wanda shushed him and Tony paid him no heed. 

 

Hill snatched up her tablet and pulled up a feed that Tony clearly recognized as pings from a tracker. Tony nearly ran into Steve as he attempted to make his way over to the screens with Natasha. Steve grabbed Tony’s shoulder to keep him from tripping over his own feet, then squeezed it in a gesture that was probably supposed to be comforting, but Tony was too panicked to notice anything right about now. He pushed by Steve and tapped on Peter’s school, then his house. 

 

“Toomes’s last tracking ping was just outside of the official district of New York City before it was removed,” Hill reported. “The last sighting of an unidentified object with wings was over Queens thirteen minutes ago.”

 

“Not Sam?” Clint checked as he swiped the tablet from Hill.

 

“Not Sam,” She confirmed, and she attempted to grab it back. 

 

Clint frowned at the map, deftly avoiding her half-hearted attempts to steal it back. “Hey, why’d he take a detour like that?”

 

“Like what?” Wanda asked. Her eyes were glowing a faint scarlet, a clear sign of stress, and Tony recalled a short conversation with Peter about  _ his _ conversation with the Scarlet Witch. Peter had said that they’d hit it off fairly well, although Wanda had said that Peter reminded her of someone. Tony didn’t tell the kid that it was her dead twin brother. Tony knew that they’d met up a few other times. He’d teased the kid about it, initially, but Peter had then gotten upset and snapped that Wanda just needed a friend. Tony laid off him after that. 

 

“Nat, zoom out for a sec,” Clint ordered, ignoring the Sokovian’s question, which clearly made her irritated. Natasha complied, making the viewing range smaller until the prison was visible as well as the five boroughs. Clint flicked his fingers up and the tracker pings overlaid themselves on the map.

 

The archer was right. Toomes had deviated from his previously-beeline path out towards New Jersey before turning back inwards. “Why would he do that?” Sam asked, leaning back in his chair as he surveyed the screen. “Plane?”

 

“No,” Vision interjected, his eyes doing the weird checked-out thing that he did when he accessed the web. “There are no scheduled flights from any of the New York airports with that type of flight path, nor any air traffic tower monitoring a plane that would potentially interfere over that area.”

 

Something clicked in Tony’s brain. “Hey, Steve,” He said, gesturing to the place where Toomes had turned back to the city. “Where was that HYDRA base again?”

 

Cap’s expression cleared suddenly. “Not far from there. Ten minutes out, maybe. You don’t think—”

 

“I do,” Tony interrupted, grabbing the tablet out of Clint’s unresisting hands and striding for the door. This time, Hill didn’t stop him, only demanded, “Where are you going?”

 

“To go get my kid,” Tony snapped. “I know where Toomes is heading if he has Peter. And if he doesn’t, I still know where he’s going.”

 

\---

 

Why was he flying?

 

Consciousness came with a snap. Peter blinked his eyes open blearily and they barely got to half-mast before he glimpsed the ground whizzing by underneath him. What…? 

 

He became aware of cold metal wrapped around his upper arms, keeping him in the air, as well as a persistent throbbing in his head, concentrated at the back of it. He really had to stop getting head injuries before Mr. Stark built a helmet into his suit. There were warnings plastered all over his HUD, and Karen’s garbled voice said something about a puncture in the back of Peter’s suit. 

 

Peter managed to lift his head and catch a glimpse of glowing green eyes and horrific metal wings that most certainly did  _ not _ belong to Sam Wilson. Peter hated that he recognized them, although the last time he’d seen them, they’d been smoking and then exploding and spraying shrapnel everywhere.  _ Crap _ .

 

How the hell had Toomes escaped his prison? 

 

Belatedly, Peter thought of the distress signal on his webshooter, and attempted to reach for it. But the grip on his upper arms tightened to the point of nearly snapping his bones, and Peter let out a shattered groan and fell limp again. The Vulture’s weird leg-grippers that had torn into his chest on Homecoming night were wrapped around his arms, and it really wasn’t helping his dizziness. His head was swimming and he felt so strangely weak that he could barely move properly. What kind of concussion did  _ that? _

 

Any hope that it wasn’t Toomes was blown to pieces when the man above him drawled, “Hey, Pedro. Having a nice ride?”

 

Peter shook his head weakly. “Where’s the in-flight services? I want a Pepsi.”

 

“I can’t say I carry beverages,” Toomes told him. “But I’m sure HYDRA would love to give you a soda.”

 

\---

 

“This is Megan McLaren with NBC, reporting live from New York City with breaking news. The Avengers, including Tony Stark’s Iron Man and Air Force Colonel James Rhodes, seem to be on the hunt—”

 

“This is Ethan Edwards with CNN. The robot known as the Vision and Wanda Maximoff have seemed to have teamed up in Queens, New York. They appear to be—”

 

“—must be looking for something. War Machine and Falcon have been sighted over the Brooklyn Bridge—”

 

“—Hawkeye and Black Widow in downtown Manhattan—”

 

“—Captain America on a motorcycle in Brooklyn, speeding through the Holland tunnel—”

 

“—Thor off-planet—”

 

“—Iron Man all over the city, most recent sighting over New Jersey, headed towards Queens—”

 

“—Spider-Man has yet to make an appearance—”

 

“—what could they be looking for?”

 

“You’re all over the news, Stark,” Maria Hill’s voice said in Tony’s ear as he blasted over to where the HYDRA base was located. The other Avengers were all failsafes, distractions, but honing in on the area nonetheless. “Nobody can figure out why all the Avengers are deployed. You’re even on the BBC.”

  
  
“Flattering,” Tony told her as he burst clean through an abandoned warehouse and out the other side. “I’d prefer if you were looking for the kid instead of looking at my metal ass, Hill.”

 

“She’d prefer Cap’s,” Clint called, amusement clearly covering his worry. “No offense, Stark, but have you seen that star-spangled ass?”

 

“Hawkeye, enough,” Cap ordered, sounding a little flustered. “Stark, you have eyes on the base?”

 

“I’m about to. Vision?” 

 

“We are headed out of Queens now. I have the location and we are in the air.”

 

“Congratulations,” Sam told him. “Well, Rhodey and I are five minutes out. Stark, you sure he’s here?”

 

The city below him had turned to abandoned highways and poorly-lit farmhouses. In the distance, there was a looming, dark compound illuminated only by the moon. “If he’s not there yet, he will be soon.”

 

—-

 

Peter came to again, but this time, it was like swimming up from the bottom of the deep end of a pool. There was pressure in his head and a throbbing in his lungs. 

 

He felt like  _ shit _ . 

 

The blinding white lights nearly made Peter shut his eyes again after he opened them. He was bound to a chair (vibranium cuffs again, come on) in an otherwise empty-looking room. Peter yanked futilely at the cuffs and promptly discovered that the chair didn’t give like it had last time. 

 

Come to think of it, this situation was way too reminiscent of the situation involving drugs, security cameras, and the Winter Soldier. 

 

Toomes’s voice echoed in Peter’s ears.  _ I’m sure HYDRA would love to give you a soda _ . Had Peter asked for a drink?

 

He groaned and tilted his head backwards, resting it against the back of the chair. Which was also vibranium, which was really  _ not _ helping Peter’s case. But he frowned when he caught sight of a glint of metal behind him. 

 

He lifted his head and twisted as much as he could. Panic set in his veins. 

 

That was a surgical table. Surgical lights. Surgical tools. 

 

Surgery. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. 

 

His spider-sense hummed, a buzz insisting that Peter  _ get out get out get out.  _

 

He was too concussed for this. His vision blurred then went double.

 

A door opened. Was Peter hallucinating? There were no unicorns dancing around farting rainbows or whatever they did, but there was a man who closely resembled the estranged Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross. Yeah, Peter’s brain was definitely messed up. Had Toomes hit him  _ that _ hard?

 

“Hello, Peter,” Hallucination-Ross said. HalluciRoss? HallucinaRoss? “I have a few questions for you.”

 

HalluciRoss pulled out a knife that looked just a  _ little _ too sharp for Peter’s hallucination standards. But it definitely stung when HalluciRoss pressed it against his forearm. 

 

“And after you’ve answered my questions,” Not-a-hallucination Ross said, studying the blood that had stained the blade. “We’ll just check how your body ticks. After all, I doubt anyone will protest. It is for science.”

 

Dread settled in his stomach like a rock. Mr. Stark, where was Mr. Stark—

 

Two goons unlocked Peter’s cuffs from the chair and dragged him over to the table he’d glimpsed earlier.  He only remember to fight once he was already pinned to the table. 

 

One of the HYDRA agents that appeared to be taking orders from Ross pulled off his armor, revealing doctor-looking scrubs. He pulled a mask over his face and switched on a surgical light. The brightness blinded Peter, and he squeezed his eyes shut. 

 

“Vell, Peter,” The German doctor purred, pressing what felt like a scalpel against Peter’s abdomen. “What do you say we get started?”

 

His spider-sense _screamed_. He felt it insisting, begging him to _get out now get out get out run run run_ _run run_. But he couldn’t, the vibranium was stronger than he was and he was flat against the table and he couldn’t _breathe–_

 

“I’m allergic to surgery,” Peter managed, and he could feel the breath of the doctor guy as he huffed a laugh. “Ve vill see.”

 

Peter felt the first bite of the scalpel as the doctor slashed it along his torso. He clenched his jaw shut firmly. Mr. Stark was coming. He had to be coming. 

 

Three hours later, he screamed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely apologize for this cliffhanger. I even more sincerely apologize for the fact that Part 2 will probably be posted around next Friday. Hopefully earlier. Keep your eyes peeled. I'm just preparing for the worst.
> 
> Thanks for the overwhelming support for this fic! It's a blast to write. And yes, I am aware there is no saving of Peters in this chapter. ;). Maybe this chapter should be called 'And also the one time the Avengers didn't save Peter'. Petition? I don't know. 
> 
> Kudos and comments make my day :). love y'all. See you on Friday, but hopefully before.


	7. Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man PART 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y’all. 
> 
> So, SO SORRY this had such a long wait!! I had some personal stuff, AWFUL writers block, AND my beta just moved, so it was harder for her to edit conveniently. But THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who left supportive comments telling me not to stress about it. I responded to the more effusive ones, but I, again, want to say thank you. 
> 
> Not mine. Marvel’s. Beta’d by SeetheSea & moral support from borkybarnes. 
> 
> Enjoy!! (Last chapter!!)

“ _We are under attack_ .” 

 

A voice. (What voice?) It echoed in his head, a monotonous tune that rang in his ears and made his brain feel like it wanted to crack open. Loud. It was loud. 

 

“ _ We are under attack. _ ”

 

Maybe not an echo. An announcement. On repeat. 

 

“ _ Report to battle stations immediately.” _

 

Peter turned his head to the side, too dazed to try and get up. Once his head was facing the blank whiteness that was a different shade than the ceiling (why is that, why didn’t they get the same paint for both, and it bothers Peter for some reason, why does he care), he couldn’t muster the strength to turn it back again.

 

“ _ We are under attack _ .”

 

Peter could barely hear the droning alarm over the high-pitched ringing in his ears. It pierced straight through his head, spearing his brain and making his head feel like it had been cleaved in half. It distracted him from the shooting pains in his abdomen, his back, his… ow.

 

“ _ We are under attack _ .”

  
  
Peter got it—they were under attack. He was terrifyingly numb and aware at the same time. He could feel every flaw in the table beneath him, the one that was slick with sweat and blood and whatever liquid they’d dumped on him that made his wounds scream in pain and made him scream with them. But he couldn’t feel his fingers, his legs. He was just a piece of dust, floating through the air, pinned to the ground, knees buckling and shrieking as he burned and fell apart into shaking hands—

 

“ _ Report to battle stations immediately _ .”

 

The building shook and Peter’s ears rang with the distinctive whine of Iron Man’s repulsors. Peter trembled with relief (and pain, pain that was eating him apart and making him want to  _ scream _ ) and closed his eyes. Mr. Stark was here. He would be fine. He just had to wait. 

 

\---

 

“On your six, Cap!” 

 

“Thanks!”

  
  
“Let’s go, slowpokes!” Tony yelled before he changed directions and plowed straight through the stone walls of the HYDRA base. He didn’t care about the damage to the exterior of the suit that FRIDAY reported, didn’t care about the shouts of Wanda and Sam insisting that he wait a few minutes more for them to arrive, he didn’t  _ care _ . He needed to get to his kid,  _ that _ was all he cared about. 

 

“Stark!” Natasha’s voice snapped, her voice cold and controlled but so cutting that Tony had to stop. 

 

(He also had to stop because he had just used  _ three _ adjectives beginning with ‘c’ and if he was becoming poetic, he was going to blame it on Banner and Thor. He decided that because they were God-knows-where and Tony needed to blame someone. And hey, if he was hoping that that perceived insult might make their resident god and resident scientist turn up, who was going to call him out on it?)

 

(That didn’t even make sense. Tony didn’t care. He just cared about his kid, about  _ Peter— _ )

 

“Take me in with you,” Natasha ordered. 

 

“What?” Tony demanded blankly, because that notion was so incredibly  _ bizarre _ . Why would Natasha, of all people, want to be dropped in the middle of an active HYDRA base with nobody but Tony as backup? She usually stuck with Clint and Steve, taking out the perimeter and making sure no one slipped by. Not heading straight into the thick of things, where Iron Man shot missiles and lasers and there were bombs and lightning (although there was not so much of that anymore) and she wouldn’t have a thick suit of armor to protect her if things went south. Nat was perfect for slipping into bases and taking out anyone who stood in her way, but in an open field with all the heavily-armed and all-too-aware HYDRA base, she was vulnerable. 

 

He faintly noticed a group of HYDRA agents shout in alarm as Tony crashed straight through their wall into their hallway. He casually activated one of the missiles on his shoulder and the ceiling collapsed on the black-clothed men before they had a chance to react.

 

“You need all the help you can get.”

  
  
“That is—”

  
  
“Smart,” Cap interrupted, and Tony caught a faint  _ clang _ through the comm as Steve presumably threw the shield at something. “That’s smart.”

  
  
“I was gonna say stupid, and I don’t know that those two adjectives are interchangeable, but I guess this coming from the guy using a glorified Frisbee—”

  
  
“Tony,” Steve interrupted. “Natasha wants to help. We all want to help. Just let us.”

 

“You don’t get it, Cap,” Tony said. His voice was getting higher, hysterical, and he was standing in the middle of this HYDRA base and its blank empty hallways with a hole into the open sky and he could hardly  _ breathe _ . “The kid—he’s—the—the kid, he’s the  _ kid _ , he’s  _ my kid.  _ I need to—I need—”

 

Natasha and Clint appeared out of nowhere, Clint hopping over a stray piece of rubble, bow in hand, and Natasha materializing beside Tony. He nearly blew the former Russian assassin’s face off before instead firing at the lone HYDRA agent who came around the corner and had the gall (or incredible stupidity) to aim a gun at Hawkeye. 

 

The archer ignored the near miss. “I get it, Stark,” He said, twirling his bow unconsciously. “I’ve got kids, too. But we also care about Spider-Man. You don’t have to go it alone.” 

 

“Fine!” Tony snapped, throwing up his hands and turning to blast out another wall. “But if you get shot, I’m not coming back for you.”

 

They all knew it was a blatant lie. Nobody bothered pointing it out. Instead, Sam simply said, “I’ve got you covered, Iron Man. Maybe Vision and I can do your job as well as you can.”

 

“We’ll see about that, Sam,” Rhodey told him, voice amused. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself.”

 

“Chatter!” Steve interjected. “You guys think you can spare me? I’m going to go back up Tony.”

 

“Go,” Wanda said, and Tony could imagine her lifting up the tanks and slamming them into each other. “We’ve got this. Go help Peter.”

 

“On my way to you guys,” Steve said breathlessly, his footsteps pounding faintly through the comm. “Thanks, Wanda.” 

 

The next wall Tony blew out lead right into an open courtyard, filled to the brim with scrambling soldiers, some pushing heavy artillery and driving tanks. At the close-range explosion, they turned around and stared blankly at the three Avengers for a few beats. Tony suddenly felt very, very exposed in his impenetrable metal suit of armor. He could only imagine how his unarmored companions were feeling. 

 

One of them screamed something in German, and suddenly there were a hundred guns pointed straight at them. “Nice plan, Stark,” Clint muttered out of the side of his mouth. 

 

Steve chose that utterly perfect moment to burst noisily into the scene, his innocent little face set into a cheerful expression. “What’s going on…”

 

His loud interjection startled the HYDRA men into action. They flicked their safeties off and fired. Tony stepped in front of Clint as Steve grabbed Natasha and pulled her behind his shield with him. Tony caught a glimpse of Bucky ducking behind a pillar on the far side of the courtyard. 

 

“Hey, FRIDAY,” He said, smirking and feeling the protective (not parental. Tony couldn’t handle  _ parental _ ) instinct surge up from his gut and make his fingers tingle. The bullets pinged off him, hardly more than scratches on the armor. Clint cursed behind him, and as Tony saw Steve and Nat tucked behind the shield, all he could think of was  _ little turtle of patriotism.  _ “How many do you think we can take out in one round if we use the new ones?”

 

Even FRIDAY’s usually-monotonous was somehow vicious over the unceasing spray of bullets peppering the suit. “I estimate upwards of ninety percent, boss.”

 

“Go for it.”

  
  
Tony rolled his shoulders, feeling the plates storing his prototype missiles rise up, then deploy. Dozens of miniature torpedoes shot straight for the still-firing squad of HYDRA agents. Tony activated his repulsors and rose into the air, activating a heat-signature scan, so he didn’t see the aftermath of his new weapons, but from the screams of pain coming from below him, they’d had good results.  

 

Then everything went to shit.

 

Out of the blue, Cap yelled from where he threw his shield at one of the lone still-standing agents. “Tony, behind you—”

 

“Stark.” The voice was low, musing, and carried a note of loathing that didn’t escape Tony. And unfortunately, he thought he knew who it was. 

 

He did a 180-turn to face Adrian Toomes. 

 

The guy’s (admittedly sort of impressive yet cobbled-together) wings were newly made and holding him up at the same height as Tony. The glowing green eyes and weird mask with an oxygen tube were really unnecessary because they were about fifty feet in the air, but who was Tony to judge? And who was Tony to care right now? Because right there, in his clawed talons hung Peter.

 

The kid was completely limp. Toomes’ weird claw-feet-things were wrapped around his upper arms, and there were open, bleeding wounds covering his torso. Tony’s arms trembled in his fury and he nearly stumbled in the air.

 

“I haven’t had the honor of meeting you yet, Stark,” Toomes said, and Tony found himself wanting to strangle this man. He didn’t care that he had a wife, a family, friends, maybe, he was going to choke the life out of Toomes and not regret it until the kid looked up with his big puppy eyes and trembling mouth and say  _ Mr. Stark, why did you kill him? _ , and even then, Tony might still not care because the kid ( _ his  _ kid) was hanging there like a rag doll and he wasn’t in the position to be making any puppy eyes. “But the kid told us a lot about you when he was under the knife.”

  
  
And Tony? Tony saw red.

 

He raised a hand, intending to blast Toomes in the face so hard that the mask would melt into molten metal and burn his eyes out of his sockets and weld his mouth shut, but Toomes shook his head and wagged a finger like a disapproving parent. “Ah-ah-ah,” He warned, lurching in the air a little and swaying Peter back in forth for emphasis. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Stark. See, even though Pedro here is quite a strong little spider, I don’t think he’d survive a fifty-foot drop in  _ this _ condition. The HYDRA scientists offered me a pretty penny to bring him in, and they were pretty thorough in their examinations. Hey, did you know that his bone structure is ten times stronger than a normal humans? They, ah, still managed to break a few.”

  
  
Oh, man, screw Peter and his puppy eyes, this guy was  _ dead _ . Dead as a doornail.

 

(Tony didn’t get that expression. Why was a doornail any different than any other nail? There was nothing death-related about a door except for those unfortunate moments when you haven’t slept in three days and then you run into a glass door or a doorframe. In those moments, Tony wanted to die. Didn’t everyone, though?)

  
  
(Peter had attempted to explain, stammering something out about how it was old, and French, or something. Tony had laughed and ruffled the kid’s (his kid’s) hair and said something about working on the suit. Tony couldn’t remember, now. He wished he could.)

  
  
“Toomes!” Cap yelled from the ground, and Tony realized that there were actually other people on this planet other than Peter and Toomes. The four other Avengers were in a clustered little circle in Tony’s shadow, glaring up at Toomes and surrounded by HYDRA corpses. “Come down now and we can talk about this!” 

  
  
Toomes laughed. It was high, hysterical, nervous, like he thought that he wasn’t coming out of this alive, and Tony could only think  _ serves him right if he doesn’t. _

 

“You know the problem with you Avengers?” He asked, and Tony did know a lot of problems with the Avengers, and the most pressing problem the Avengers faced right now was a psycho guy with wings holding Spider-Man captive.    
  


“Your problem is that you go after the big guys. Ultron, Loki. But when you see a homeless man starving on the street, or a bunch of guys trying to make enough to feed their families, you do  _ nothing _ !” He roared, jostling Peter enough that the kid groaned and shifted. “ _ That’s _ why I do this! Not because I want to!” 

 

Toomes was raging, hysterical, and Tony could imagine spittle flying from his lips and wetting the inside of his mask. Peter was starting to move, to try and move his arms back down to his sides. His eyes were still shut, and Tony prayed they’d stay that way. Toomes’s hands were curled into fists, his fingers twitching towards the weird-looking gun at his side. “Did you care about my daughter? Care about my friend Herman?”

  
  
Natasha’s voice was exhausted and razor-sharp. “We can’t save everyone. Why don’t you blame the mayor? The President?”

  
  
“You’re all the same,” Toomes growled, voice furious (and it reminded Tony of a petulant child rebelling against his elders). “And even though Pedro here says he’s looking out for the  _ little guy _ , he’s even worse than you are.”

 

That did it. FRIDAY’s warnings in his ear, he lunged at Toomes.

 

\---

 

You could say that the Avengers were heroes. Saviors. They had defeated Ultron, Loki. They saved the world and the public was thankful. 

 

Others would say that the Avengers were nothing more than villains under the guise of greatness. The Avengers Tony Stark and Bruce Banner had, after all, borne Ultron into the world as a means of protecting the Earth and nearly destroyed it in the process. Thor had, after all, caused Loki to fall from the Bifrost into Thanos’s clutches, encouraging him to invade Earth. And Thor was, after all, an Avenger. 

 

(Nondisclosing the fact that neither Thor nor Bruce Banner had been seen in two years.)

 

The Avengers would say, however, that they were nothing more than flawed protectors. Superhuman, genius, dangerous, they were a group designed to end once the threats did. 

 

There were also the heroes like Spider-Man. They looked out for the “little guy” and tried to make one person’s day better. Stolen bikes, runaway toddlers, a mugger in a back alley with a knife. Spider-Man was everything the Avengers weren’t, because he was out there in his pajamas at age fourteen and he was out to make the world a better place, one person at a time. He wasn’t out there to save the world, he was out to make it a better place. One. Person. At a time.

 

Peter Parker was everything that Tony Stark wasn’t. Where Tony Stark shrugged his shoulders and said that there was nothing he could do, Peter Parker went out on the streets and tried to fix the problem. Where Tony Stark forgot, Peter Parker remembered and put an arm around your shoulder and let you cry. Peter Parker was everything Tony Stark was, too, because he was honest and kind and he was out to fix the world. And Tony Stark hoped that Peter Parker would be better than he ever could be. 

 

So you could imagine Tony Stark’s dismay when Peter Parker, injured and bleeding, was dropped fifty feet down towards four horrified Avengers and hard, hard concrete. 

 

“Peter!” Tony Stark yelped, changing trajectory from Adrian Toomes towards the half-conscious and plummeting Spider-Man. He ordered his AI to go as fast as it could push the suit. Ten feet above the ground, Iron Man caught Peter Parker around the waist and stopped his fall. Peter yelped in pain and pushed blindly against Iron Man’s suit. The metal groaned before Tony Stark set himself on the ground, looked at Peter (his kid), then up at Toomes, who was starting to fly away, then back again. Underneath the mask, his jaw set. 

 

“Hold onto him for me,” Tony ordered, shoving Peter into the hands of Natasha Romanov and taking to the skies. He rocketed away before the Black Widow could protest, and she sighed before adjusting Peter in her arms. Peter was out cold again, and he only shifted against her once. He was shirtless, and Natasha could see every cut and incision that the HYDRA scientists had made. Her blood boiled and she adjusted her gun with her other hand.

 

“Is he all right?” Clint Barton asked, adjusting the string of his bow and pretending that the limp Peter Parker didn’t remind him of his three children, hidden on an isolated farm. 

 

“We have to move,” Steve Rogers said before Natasha could answer. “Sam says that there are more soldiers incoming. They’re after Peter.”

  
  
Clint smirked viciously, pulled an arrow out of his quiver, and began screwing on a new arrowhead. “It would be my pleasure to give them something else.”

  
  
Natasha gave him a dubious look and the archer put his hands up. “Not what I meant!”

  
  
“All right,” Captain America interrupted, pulling his shield off his back. “Here’s the plan. Sam says that they’re too wrapped up out there to help us out, so we’re on our own here until Tony takes down Toomes. Nat, I want you to get Peter out of here. Us three, we’re going to take out as many goons as we can and keep them away from Natasha. Th—”

  
  
The ground shuddered, then cracked open, opening like a fault line in an earthquake. The Avengers were split in half; Natasha (holding a still-unconscious Peter Parker) and Clint on one side and Steve and Bucky Barnes on the other. Steve yanked Bucky Barnes backwards before the metal-armed man could fall into the gap. More and more of the floor fell away until there was a still-widening ravine cleaving the base in half. 

 

For a moment, the only sound was the settling of the rubble and the hiss of the rising dust. Then, someone yelled something in German from below, and gunfire erupted. 

 

And so, the highest-stake game of keep-away began.  

 

Steve raised his shield and Bucky covered his face with his metal arm. Clint, next to Natasha, drew the special arrow he’d fashioned earlier, nocked it, and fired. 

 

For three seconds, three strained seconds, the arrow did nothing. The gunfire continued, and over the unceasing noise, Captain America yelled, “Natasha, go!”

 

She did, running for the nearest exit just as a shuddering  _ boom _ went off below them and white-hot fire spurted thirty feet in the air, nearly singing the bottom of Iron Man’s boots as he flew by overhead.  Clint winked at Natasha and she shook her head from where she had Peter in a careful fireman’s carry, leaping over fallen pieces of concrete. The ground cracked underneath her again just as a dozen HYDRA agents exited the hallway she had just been about to escape out of. 

 

She smiled sweetly at them, adjusted Peter in her arms, then turned her head and cautiously called out, “Clint?”

 

Their faces twisted into snarls and they raised their guns. In a flash, Clint was by her side, and wordlessly, he held out an arm. Before the HYDRA agents could fire, she hissed, “Take him!” and shoved Peter into Clint’s arms. 

 

Baggage liberated, she drew a knife from her belt and grinned viciously at them. “Hey, boys,” She purred. “Care to dance?”

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the chasm, Steve and Bucky were locked in an… unusual battle, to say the least. Much of the gunfire had ceased, but there were clearly a few soldiers still down there because every so often the sound of a bullet firing pierced the mostly-silent atmosphere. It was overshadowed, of course, by Natasha systematically taking the dozen-and-increasing men in her hallway.  

 

Clint hoisted Peter higher in his arms, glad that his bow was stored on his back, then groaned as he spotted Toomes. Or, more accurately, where Toomes was headed. 

 

The Vulture was bearing straight towards the archer, arms outstretched and toxic green eyes fixed hungrily not on him, but on Peter. Iron Man was right on his heels, but there was no way he’d get there in time to stop the Vulture from bowling Clint over and grabbing the kid. 

 

“ _ Clint _ !” Steve yelled from across the ten-foot gab. His hands were empty—the shield was in Bucky’s hand as he blocked bullets and fired back shots of his own. “Pass him over!”

 

Clint calculated. He’d been in a circus—he knew how trapezes worked, knew that the odds were that Peter would  _ barely _ make it to the other side.

 

Clint looked back at Toomes, set his jaw, and threw Peter over the cliff as hard as he could. 

 

The kid didn’t make it. 

 

Steve did. 

 

When it became obvious that Peter wasn’t going to clear the edge, Steve hopped right into the canyon, grabbing the ledge with one hand and barely catching Peter’s wrist with the other. 

 

Toomes changed directions, but now that Clint’s hands were empty, he was free to pull his bow off his back and delivered a slew of explosive arrows. Toomes turned back towards the sky just as Iron Man slammed bodily into him, nearly slicing one of his wings clean off.

 

Steve hoisted himself back up, trying to not jostle Peter any more than necessary. Natasha knocked down the last man in her hallway, but stumbled and ducked as a blast of blue energy nearly took her head off. It seemed like Toomes had pulled out some sort of alien gun, and his shot had missed Tony but nearly got Natasha. 

 

Iron Man took the next blast to the chest and spun out, giving Toomes the vital few seconds he needed. Ignoring Clint’s arrows, he turned the gun towards Steve and Peter, the former of which was running along the edge of the chasm towards Bucky, the latter of which was slung in Steve’s arms. 

 

Steve noticed too late. The blast, although it missed him, cracked the ground underneath him and then it began to crumble beneath him. He only had time to tell, “Bucky!” and hold up Peter’s limp body for his friend to grab before he tumbled down. 

 

Bucky reached out with his metal arm and just barely managed to grab Peter’s wrist. “Jeez, kid,” He muttered, pulling the teenager up easily. “You love falling down there, don’t you?”

 

“Steve, you okay?” Clint called, not taking his eyes off Toomes as he shot arrow after arrow, shaking Toomes in the sky. Iron Man had regained his balance, although his left repulsor boot sputtered periodically, and he was headed straight for the Vulture as he wobbled in the sky on damaged wings.

 

“I’m good!” Steve yelled back. “I see another way out. You guys okay up there?”

 

Peter groaned from his bridal carry in Bucky’s arms. With a final blast from the Iron Man suit and a  _ crack! _ , Toomes’s left wing snapped clean off and nearly decapitated Natasha again. She ducked, then saluted Bucky and slipped into the hallway. Clint stowed his bow and adjusted his quiver, now nearly empty of arrows, then followed her. 

 

“We’re good, Steve,” Bucky called back. “I’ve got the kid and we’re heading out.”

 

Toomes hit the earth with a resounding thud and didn’t get back up. Tony landed so hard that the already-precarious concrete cracked, and the suit folded off of him. Without a word, he pulled the kid right out of Bucky’s arms and nearly knocked himself over in the process. There was a panicked, almost frenzied look in his eyes and he frantically checked Peter for a pulse once, twice. 

 

Bucky has already checked. He didn’t tell Stark that, though. 

 

Belatedly, he, Clint and Natasha realized they were covered in blood. 

 

“He’s alive,” Tony breathed. “He’s—he’s—”

 

He didn’t seem to know what to say, just kept touching Peter’s pale face as though he couldn’t believe he was really there. Bucky rested his good hand on Tony’s shoulder, making the inventor jump. 

 

“Why don’t we get him out of here?” Bucky said gently. “Get him to medical.”

 

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, not seeming like he really heard Bucky’s words. “Yeah.”

 

When he made no move to pick Peter up, Bucky entry slid his good arm under the kid and lifted him up, dislodging Tony’s hands. He looked up to protest, but Bucky affixed his metal arm around Stark’s forearm and dragged him along. 

 

Wanda Maximoff’s voice came through the Avengers’ comm for the first time (for the five of them) since the whole battle had begun. “We’re all wrapped up out here. Are you guys okay? Did you get him?”

 

“We got him,” Tony said, still sounding like he couldn’t believe it. “We got him.”

 

\---

 

Peter woke up to the sound of incessant beeping and the sensation of a hand in his.  

 

He groaned, turning his head away from the light, and the hand squeezed. “Peter?” A voice said, fumbling with something next to him, which subsequently ended up on the floor. “Peter, you with me?”

 

Peter scrunched up his nose, but hummed an affirmative. “Okay, good, that’s good. You wanna open your eyes, kid, or are you gonna check out on me again?”

 

Peter stuck his tongue out at Mr. Stark and blinked. The light was bright, but he noticed idly that they had been dimmed anyways. He frowned at Mr. Stark, who was looking decidedly exhausted and scruffy (although he would have never told Mr. Stark that to his face) (okay, maybe he would have), then pushed himself onto an elbow. Mr. Stark tried to push him back down, but Peter succeeded in rising with only a minor pulling sensation in his torso. 

 

His head was foggy. Peter frowned again, then lifted the blanket off of himself. His chest and stomach were swaddled in so many bandages that it practically formed a shirt in its own right. But why couldn’t he feel anything? What had happened?

 

Mr. Stark seemed to read his thoughts and said, “You’re all drugged up, kid. Took a while to find something that your body didn’t metabolize in three seconds. We ended up mixing it with some sort of chemical that works on spiders.” He laughed disbelievingly for a second. “That was something. You feeling okay?”

 

Peter nodded, then croaked out, “Yeah. What—”

 

As though a dam had suddenly been broken, everything suddenly rushed back: HYDRA, Toomes, Ross, the sensation of knives slicing deep into his torso—

 

Peter sat bolt upright, then nearly fell over sideways. “Whoa, kid, whoa,” Mr. Stark said, grabbing onto Peter’s shoulders to keep him steady. “Easy.”

  
  
Peter shook his head, gasping in breaths and feeling like the Hulk was sitting on his chest. “No, no, you don’t—Toomes— _ Ross _ —”

 

“I know,” Mr. Stark soothed, rubbing circles into Peter’s wrist. Peter would have thought Tony would have rubbed his back, helped him breathe, except he was encircled in bandages and that probably wasn’t the most ideal thing because Tony wouldn’t be able to  _ reach _ his back, but somehow he preferred it because at least then Tony could make sure he was still breathing because right now Peter wasn’t sure—

 

“Still here, kid?” Tony asked, squeezing his hand.

 

(Idly, Peter wondered when Mr. Stark had become Tony.)

 

Peter buried his face in his knees and his free hand. He could feel himself shaking, but couldn’t bring himself to care. Tony seemed to get it. Instead of trying to coax Peter up, he simply reached over somewhere and Peter could hear him with rustling papers in his hand. “I’ve got something for you, kid. Wanna come up and see it?”

  
  
Peter shook his head. He didn’t want whatever little thing Mr. Stark had for him, didn’t want it, he just wanted Mr. Stark to  _ be here _ —

  
  
(His brain had switched again. Peter didn’t want to try and understand why.)

 

“Peter,” He said softly, and Peter lifted his head. 

 

The billionaire had a bunch of pieces of folded paper held carefully in his hands. They were of various colors and designs—printer paper, drugstore cards, even a piece of bright red construction paper. Peter stared at it, then at Tony. “Uh, what?”

  
  
Tony pushed the bundle gently against his arm. “They’re yours. The team, uh, decided they wanted to thank you.”

  
  
“For what?” Peter asked bewilderedly. “I got myself captured, I—”

  
  
“Not for that,” Tony interrupted dismissively. “Although you didn’t  _ get _ yourself anything. They wanted to thank you for saving their lives.”

 

“But I was just doing my job,” Peter protested. “I do that all the time, it’s not a big deal!” 

  
  
“To them, it was,” Tony told him, then smirked, ruffling Peter’s hair. “Look at my little Spider-Kid, getting all grown up.”

 

Peter stuck his tongue out, but took the cards. One of them had a beautifully-rendered sketch of New York City with a little Spider-Man swinging from the Empire State Building. He raised an eyebrow at it (he hadn’t realized that anyone on the Avengers team could even draw), then opened it. 

 

_ Peter, _ it read.  _ I realize I never got around to saying this when it first happened, but about a month ago, you saved my life. _

 

The specifics were killing him. Peter kept reading. 

 

_ And I realize now that I never thanked you. It seems like most of the team has shared this experience, too. So I wanted to say thank you. And not only for me, but for Bucky, too _ . 

  
Peter had a sneaking suspicion about who this was from. He doubted it was unfounded. 

 

_ Peter, you didn’t choose this life. Nobody got to pick who got bitten, but all things considered, I’m glad it was you. If only because you are the noblest, bravest, strongest person I know. So thanks. _

 

_ Steve. _

 

Peter wanted to laugh at the lame ending, because Steve clearly hadn’t known how to finish  _ that _ off. But he also kind of wanted to cry, because that was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said about him. He settled for releasing an impressed breath, carefully setting the card aside, and picking up another piece of printer paper. 

 

This one was blank, but when Peter opened it, there was a note, short and sweet.

 

Питер ( _Peter),_ it read. 

 

_ Thank you for saving my life when no one else was there. We’re going to be having weekly combat lessons on Saturdays from now on. Maybe I’ll teach you some Russian.  _

 

Наташа

_ (Natasha). _

 

_ P.S. I can already guarantee your accent will be terrible.  _

 

Peter couldn’t resist laughing at that one. Tony smirked and Peter knew that Natasha had already let at least one detail of that letter slip. Peter  _ also _ knew that Natasha’s way of showing affection was… not typical. He loved it all the sims. Plus, combat  _ and  _ Russian lessons! Come on. 

 

He put hers next to Steve’s and picked up a gaudy drugstore card with a profane joke on the front. When he opened it, glitter spat into his face and he spat it out. Gross. Tony laughed full-on at Peter’s face, and he stuck his tongue out before reading it. 

 

_ Peter, _ it said.  _ I’m sorry about this card. Stark and Clint went to pick them up and then told me this was the only one left. I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter.  _

 

_ I don’t know that I would have gotten out of that facility without you. I'm not too worried about whether I live or die, but it would have torn Steve apart. And I have to thank you for saving me, because that was brave and stupid and I doubt that Stark would have you any other way. So thanks. _

 

_ But if you ever get yourself hurt trying to protect me, I will kick your ass.  _

 

_ Bucky. _

 

_ P.S. I WILL HELP HIM, PETER, SO STOP GETTING YOURSELF IN TROUBLE. —Wanda _

 

Peter groaned, and Tony looked up from his phone. “What? Are the meds fading, does it hurt—”

 

“No, no,” Peter said, waving him off. “Wanda and May are going to kick my  _ ass _ .”

 

Something in his brain clicked.  _ Shit. _ “Oh, shit,  _ May!”  _ Peter exclaimed, putting the card down and making to get out of bed (it was instinct, okay? Lay off.) before utterly failing. 

 

“Chill, chill, kid,” Tony soothed. “After Toomes escaped, I sent her out of town. She argued, a lot, but I told her that you were upstate with me and she got on the plane. She’s in… Florida, I think. She’s fine.”

  
  
“Okay,” Peter breathed, sinking back on the bed and feeling  _ tired _ all of the sudden. “Okay.”   
  


“You wanna go back to sleep, kid?” Tony asked. “No hate about it, you’re still hurt.

  
“No, I want—” Peter waved his hands uselessly in the air. “I want to finish.”

 

Tony put his hands up in surrender and went back to whatever he was doing on his phone. Peter picked up the piece of red construction paper and opened it. The inside message read  _ Thank You! _

 

There was a kindergarten-looking drawing of a stick-figure holding a bow alongside another stick-figure with stripes on his face and huge eyes that Peter assumed to be his Spider-Man mask. For Peter’s apparent convenience, he and Clint were both labelled, and above it, in big block letters, read AVENGE SQUAD. Peter didn’t want to know how Clint knew that ‘modern’ lingo. 

 

_ I looked up cool teenage phrases about the Avengers and this popped up. _ Clint had written under the doodle.  _ I hope I got it right. I would have asked my older son, but I doubt he would appreciate it. I also do NOT doubt that Nat would have kicked my ass if I had died a few weeks back when you grabbed me, so I really, really appreciate that.  _

 

_ You have to get better before Stark bounces off the walls and Barnes blows his top. I’m not kidding, kid. How did you get HIM wrapped around your little finger? _

 

There was a sniffing of ink and a small tear, as though someone (Bucky) had tried to grab the pen out of Clint’s hand.  _ But seriously, kid, thanks. Stay safe.  _

 

_ —Clint _

 

A warm, fuzzy feeling rose up in Peter’s stomach and a corner of his mouth pulled up. He looked up at Tony, who looked deep in thought as he stared at his phone, and smiled softly. Peter twisted and reached over to put the cards on the table, but hissed as he felt his stitches pull. In a flash, Tony was on him, tugging him back onto the bed and frantically checking Peter’s bandages. He managed to push the inventor off after grating out that he was  _ fine _ about fifteen times. Tony sat back, looking freaked out and more disheveled than Peter had ever seen him. 

 

“Have you slept at all?” Peter asked him disapprovingly. 

 

“Oh, no. No, no, no. We are not doing this,” Tony said, wagging a finger in Peter’s face. “You don’t get to say  _ anything  _ while you’re sitting here covered in bandages in Medical. You do  _ not. _ ”

 

Peter raised his hands in surrender, then attempted to stifle a yawn. Tony shook his head at him. “Get some sleep, kid. Nobody’s going anywhere.”

 

“Stay?” Peter asked sleepily, then realized exactly what he’d just said.  _ Shit _ . He’d just asked Tony Stark, one of the busiest men on the planet, to  _ stay with him while he slept _ . Because he was scared. God, Peter was never going to live this down—

 

“Sure, kid,” Mr. Stark said easily, toeing off his shoes and plopping them onto Peter’s bed. Peter smiled softly and closed his eyes, because holy cow he had the best family in the world. 

 

As he was fading into sleep, he faintly heard Tony say, “You did good, kid. Peter. Thanks.”

 

Somehow, that was the best thank you of all. 

 

And somehow, this little family that they’d begun to cultivate, the cards sitting on the table next to him and Tony sitting beside him—yeah, somehow that was enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow!! Thank you so much for all the support on this 5+1(+1??). I loved every minute of it, and even though I must admit this last chapter wasn’t my FAVORITE, it was still pretty fun to tie all my loose ends together, so to speak. Thanks to every single one of you who commented, subscribed, bookmarked, and commented. Each one means the world to me, so thank you. 
> 
> I know I’m so late, but can we all just give a unanimous FUCK YOU to those absolutely BITCH teenagers at ace?? Leave Seb and Mackie ALONE. For one thing, no one will want to do panels with Tom Holland if all of his ‘fans’ are rude to his colleagues. Number two: WHY. THEY ARE SO NICE AND PURE AND WHAT. 
> 
> Also, I have some ideas for future fics (expect a tiny wait while I sort that out) feel FREE to send me requests for one-shots, multichaps, sequels, etc on any one of my stories. I’ll write the ones I like and have some fun with it!!
> 
> Again, thanks for the support!! Love y’all.
> 
> EDIT: if anyone ever wants to draw art for this, holy crap I would love that SO MUCH. anyway peace out love y’all!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments make my day better:). Especially in this week-long 'rain' weather forecast. Ugh. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!


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